The various panels in a container are laid out separately in terms of their subcomponents |
One can lay components out "by hand" with positioning in pixel space |
However this is very difficult to make machine independent. Thus one tends to use general strategies which are embodied in 5 LayoutMangers which all implement the LayoutManager Interface. One can expect further custom LayoutManager's to become available on the Web |
setLayout(new FlowLayout()); // creates a basic flow layout in your panel -- actually unnecessary as default |
Other available LayoutManager's are GridLayout(), BorderLayout() (default for Frame's), CardLayout() (Used for dynamic layouts) and GridBagLayout() (the most flexible) |