GridLayout

Java GridLayout Example

The grid layout Java represents a layout manager with a specified number of rows and columns. Every rectangle cell at Gridlayout java has the same size and contains a component, which fills in the entire size of the cell. In this example, we are going to design a simple calculator using GridLayout, where the grid will contain simple components.

1. Syntax of the Java GridLayout

GridLayout has two constructors:

The arguments that are used are:

Grid Layout example
  • rows: is the number of rows in the grid.
  • cols: represents the number of columns in the grid.
  • hgap: is the horizontal space between the cells.
  • vgap: is the vertical space between the cells

2. Grid Layout Java example

Before showing how to implement a GridLayout, it is important to mention that we should initialize a Jframe, which is the window that contains the components.

Create GridLayoutTest.java file and paste the following code.

GridLayoutTest.java

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package com.javacodegeeks.desktop.gridlayout;
 
import java.awt.GridLayout;
import javax.swing.JButton;
import javax.swing.JFrame;
import javax.swing.JTextArea;
 
public class GridLayoutTest {
 
    private static JButton[] arrayBtn;
     
    public static void main(String[] args) {
         
        // the frame that contains the components
        JFrame frame = new JFrame("GridLayoutTest from JCG");
        frame.setDefaultCloseOperation(JFrame.EXIT_ON_CLOSE);
        // set the size of the frame
        frame.setSize(350, 350);
         
        // set the rows and cols of the grid, as well the distances between them
        GridLayout grid = new GridLayout(5, 3, 10, 10);
        // what layout we want to use for our frame
        frame.setLayout(grid);
         
        // add a text field with a specified text to the frame
        JTextArea text = new JTextArea();
        text.setText("Result");
        text.setEditable(false);
        frame.add(text);
         
        // add buttons to the frame
        frame.add(new JButton("+"));
        frame.add(new JButton("="));
 
        arrayBtn = new JButton[10];
        // add JButtons dynamically
        for(int i=0; i < arrayBtn.length; i++) {
            arrayBtn[i] = new JButton(Integer.toString(i));
            frame.add(arrayBtn[i]);
        }
        
        frame.setVisible(true);
 
    }
 
}

Lets explain the code above. After we instantiate and set Jframe, we create the GridLayout by declaring its rows, columns and its horizontal and vertical gaps. After that we set the instantiated GridLayout as the layout of our container by calling setLayout() method. In order to include the components to our layout, we have to add them to the JFrame and not to the GridLayout. In our example we add some components (JtextArea and JButton) directly to the frame and some others dynamically, as an array of that type (array of JButtons).

The execution of this example is shown in the next image.

Java GridLayout - GridLayoutTest1
GridLayoutTest1

You can notice that the orientation of the components is horizontal and left-to-right, because that is the default value of the ComponentOrientation property.

3. Download the source code

This was an example of Grid Layout in Java.

Download
Download the source code of this example: Java GridLayout Example

Last updated on May 8th, 2020

Katerina Zamani

Katerina has graduated from the Department of Informatics and Telecommunications in National and Kapodistrian University of Athens (NKUA) and she attends MSc courses in Advanced Information Systems at the same department. Currently, her main academic interests focus on web applications, mobile development, software engineering, databases and telecommunications.
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