GUI: JButton Covering almost the entire screen

Question

I have encountered a problem whilst working the JFrame's, and JButtons. I am trying to center my JButton, however when I do so, it covers almost the entire screen. Any idea's on what's causing this?

Here is a picture on how it looks :

And here is my code :

package character;

import javax.imageio.ImageIO;
import javax.swing.*;
import java.awt.*;
import java.io.IOException;

/**
 * Created by Niknea on 6/28/14.
 */
public class characterSelector{


    JFrame  cselectorButtons, clogo;

    JLabel logo, characterName, label;

    JButton male, female;


    public characterSelector(){

        this.createCharacterSelector();

    }


    public void createCharacterSelector() {

        try {
            label = new JLabel(new ImageIcon(ImageIO.read(getClass()
                    .getResource("/resources/Grass_Background.jpg"))));
            cselectorButtons = new JFrame("SupremeSoccer");
            logo = new JLabel(new ImageIcon(ImageIO.read(this.getClass().getResource("/resources/Character_Selector_Image.png"))));
            characterName = new JLabel("<Character Name>");
            characterName.setFont(new Font(characterName.getFont().getName(),
                    Font.HANGING_BASELINE, 50));

            /*
            Buttons
             */

            male = new JButton("Male");


            ////******************////
            //// END OF BUTTONS  ////
            ////****************////
            cselectorButtons.add(logo);
            cselectorButtons.setDefaultCloseOperation(JFrame.EXIT_ON_CLOSE);
            cselectorButtons.setContentPane(label);
            cselectorButtons.setLayout(new BorderLayout());
            cselectorButtons.add(logo, BorderLayout.NORTH);
         cselectorButtons.add(male, BorderLayout.CENTER);
            cselectorButtons.pack();
            cselectorButtons.setLocationRelativeTo(null);
            cselectorButtons.setVisible(true);
        } catch (IOException exp) {
            exp.printStackTrace();
        }
    }
}

Thanks again.

Answer 1

Any idea's on what's causing this?

This is the default behaviour of BorderLayout. The component at the CENTER position will occupy the maximum amount of space the is available from the parent component, when the other (NORTH, SOUTH, EAST, WEST) positions have been taken into account

Depending on what you are trying to achieve you might consider creating another JPanel (set it's opaque state to false so it's transparent) and use something like GridLayout or GridBagLayout instead.

Take a look at A Visual Guide to Layout Managers for some more ideas

Updated

So based on your linked code, I changed

part2 = new JPanel();

to

part2 = new JPanel(new java.awt.GridBagLayout());

And got...

Updated with additional example

Start by breaking down your requirements into individual containers and focus on the layout requirements for each individual, then build them all back into a single container.

This will make changing them later much easier and also make controlling them much easier...

import java.awt.BorderLayout;
import java.awt.Color;
import java.awt.EventQueue;
import java.awt.Font;
import java.awt.GridBagConstraints;
import java.awt.GridBagLayout;
import java.awt.Insets;
import java.awt.image.BufferedImage;
import java.io.IOException;
import javax.imageio.ImageIO;
import javax.swing.ImageIcon;
import javax.swing.JButton;
import javax.swing.JFrame;
import javax.swing.JLabel;
import javax.swing.JPanel;
import javax.swing.JTextField;
import javax.swing.UIManager;
import javax.swing.UnsupportedLookAndFeelException;

public class ExampleLayout {

    public static void main(String[] args) {
        new ExampleLayout();
    }

    public ExampleLayout() {
        EventQueue.invokeLater(new Runnable() {
            @Override
            public void run() {
                try {
                    UIManager.setLookAndFeel(UIManager.getSystemLookAndFeelClassName());
                } catch (ClassNotFoundException | InstantiationException | IllegalAccessException | UnsupportedLookAndFeelException ex) {
                }

                JFrame frame = new JFrame("Testing");
                frame.setDefaultCloseOperation(JFrame.EXIT_ON_CLOSE);
                frame.setLayout(new BorderLayout());
                frame.add(new TestPane());
                frame.pack();
                frame.setLocationRelativeTo(null);
                frame.setVisible(true);
            }
        });
    }

    public class TestPane extends JPanel {

        private HeaderPane header;
        private ScorePane score;
        private CharacterSelectionPane characterSelection;

        public TestPane() {

            setLayout(new BorderLayout());

            JLabel background = new JLabel();

            try {
                BufferedImage img = ImageIO.read(getClass().getResource("/Grass.jpg"));
                background.setIcon(new ImageIcon(img));
            } catch (IOException ex) {
                ex.printStackTrace();
            }

            add(background);

            background.setLayout(new GridBagLayout());

            header = new HeaderPane();
            score = new ScorePane();
            characterSelection = new CharacterSelectionPane();

            GridBagConstraints gbc = new GridBagConstraints();
            gbc.gridwidth = GridBagConstraints.REMAINDER;
            gbc.weightx = 1;
            gbc.fill = GridBagConstraints.BOTH;

            background.add(header, gbc);
            background.add(score, gbc);
            gbc.weighty = 1;
            background.add(characterSelection, gbc);
        }
    }

    public class HeaderPane extends JPanel {

        public HeaderPane() {
            setLayout(new BorderLayout());
            JLabel label = new JLabel("Character Selection");
            label.setForeground(Color.WHITE);
            label.setFont(label.getFont().deriveFont(Font.BOLD, 48f));
            label.setHorizontalAlignment(JLabel.CENTER);
            add(label);
            setOpaque(false);
        }

    }

    public class ScorePane extends JPanel {

        public ScorePane() {
            JLabel label = new JLabel("[-][-[]-][-]");
            label.setForeground(Color.YELLOW);
            add(label);
            setOpaque(false);
        }

    }

    public class CharacterSelectionPane extends JPanel {

        private JButton btMale;
        private JButton btFemale;
        private JTextField tfName;
        private JButton btContinue;

        public CharacterSelectionPane() {
            setOpaque(false);
            setLayout(new GridBagLayout());

            btMale = new JButton("Male");
            btFemale = new JButton("Female");
            btContinue = new JButton("Continue");
            tfName = new JTextField(10);

            GridBagConstraints gbc = new GridBagConstraints();
            gbc.gridx = 0;
            gbc.gridy = 0;
            gbc.insets = new Insets(4, 4, 4, 4);
            gbc.fill = GridBagConstraints.HORIZONTAL;

            add(btMale, gbc);
            gbc.gridx++;
            add(btFemale, gbc);
            gbc.gridx = 0;
            gbc.gridy++;
            add(new JLabel("Name:"), gbc);
            gbc.gridx++;
            add(tfName, gbc);
            gbc.gridx = 0;
            gbc.gridy++;
            gbc.gridwidth = GridBagConstraints.REMAINDER;
            add(btContinue, gbc);
        }

    }

}

Answer 2

Use a BoxLayout or (easier) GridBagLayout for the bottom area, as seen in this answer.