MigLayout is a Layout Manager for Swing and SWT created to replace all current layout managers and introduces a very easy to understand yet powerful syntax that resembles CSS.

This is the second posting in a series that will introduce MigLayout and show how easy it is to use.

If you want to start using MigLayout, just head over to miglayout.com and everything will be there waiting for you, including more examples. Miglayout is 100% free and Open Source (BSD) .

Docking Components, way Beyond BorderLayout

Docking components and panels is a very powerful a easy to understand way to organize a GUI. In Swing you would normally use BorderLayout, however it is very limited since you can only have one panel per side and the overlapping between sides is predetermined and not configurable. MigLayout use simple docking keywords to dock components and panels. The docking component "cuts off" that part of the GUI leaving the rest of the space for the the upcoming components. This is even as flexible as BoxLayout!

The code below produces the panels in the screen shot.

JPanel panel = new JPanel(new MigLayout());
 
panel.add(createLabel("West Panel"),    "dock west");
panel.add(createLabel("North 1 Panel"), "dock north");
panel.add(createLabel("North 2 Panel"), "dock north");
panel.add(createLabel("South Panel"),   "dock south");
panel.add(createLabel("East Panel"),    "dock east");
panel.add(createLabel("Center Panel"),  "grow, push"); // "dock center" from v3.0
 
return panel;

Screen Shot

 

The code for creating the panel is not relevant to this example however for completeness I poste it here:

private static JLabel createLabel(String text)
{
   JLabel label = new JLabel(text);
   label.setHorizontalAlignment(JLabel.CENTER);
   label.setBorder(new CompoundBorder(new EtchedBorder(), new EmptyBorder(5, 10, 5, 10)));
   return label;
}

Cheers,
Mikael Grev