Fair enough. We are porting a legacy DOS application
and we are finding one of the single biggest
impediments to getting our old programmers up to speed
is the layout managers. Even in an IDE these things
are difficult to use, they behave differently for
different components and each require knowledge of a
seperate syntax. One of the things my layout manager
does is allow the coders to use a coordinate system
that is familiar, if they want. The coordinate system
is not absolute positioning though, it just makes a
grid where the interstaces are proportional to the
container (so only the white space grows, or shrinks).
Components are not constrained by the grid and can
span cells, the grid is just for positioning. The
layout manager can also mimic the behavior of many
different layout managers without nesting panels,
another concept that seems to mess up our newbies. My
other big goal was to make the layout manager super
easy to use. So far all the constraints take either a
coordinate or a simple reference to another component.
Even the exceptions just take another component
reference or another pair of coordinates. I am hoping
the similarity in constraint arguments will make it
easy to master. On the other hand writing a new
Constraint is tricky, but it can be done on the fly.
I am not really trying to succeed GridBagLayout in
functionality (I'll be happy if get 95% of GBL
functionality), I do want something with all the power
of GBL but much easier to use.
--- Greg Munt <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> What does this layout manager do that
> java.awt.GridBagLayout does not?
>
> Fixed positioning is achieved with a null layout.
>
> Why would you want to simulate other layout
> managers? Just use the layout
> manager you need, rather than reimplementing it.
> This seems like a waste of
> effort to me.
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Steve Barrett <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> To: govind <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> Date: Sunday, April 01, 2001 08:47
> Subject: Re: super layout manager help
>
>
> >Of course, you are right, I need to explain a bit
> >more.
> >Ok, the goal was to have a layout manager that
> could
> >do positioning and sizing based on some kind of
> fixed
> >coordinates, as well as based on relationships to
> >other components.
> >The examples illustrate using 1) using fixed
> >coordinate positioning 2) relational positioning
> 3)
> >simulating the behavior of other lay out managers.
> >The code has the layout manager Layout, the
> abstract
> >Constraint class, and the 3 non-public Constraint
> >classes written so far.
> >What is important to me is that when the finished
> >product is used, it is simply a matter of adding a
> >component to a container, with a simple one or two
> >parameter constraint. My other goal is that
> >specialized constraints can be added on the fly.
> >I hope this description helps.
> >
> >
> >--- govind <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> >> Hi steve,
> >>
> >> You can give a brief description of what the
> >> example does so that it is
> >> not required for somebody to go thru the code and
> >> know what the test
> >> program does.If i miss something or if i am wrong
> >> please apologize and let
> >> me know.
> >>
> >> Thanks and Regards
> >> govind
> >> At 12:04 AM 4/1/01 -0800, you wrote:
> >> >Attached is source for a layout manager I am
> >> working
> >> >on. Its intended to be fairly simply to use and
> >> very
> >> >extensible. My approach was to write a layout
> >> manager
> >> >than can handle all kinds of customized
> constraint
> >> >objects. I want to provide a useful set of
> >> constraint
> >> >objects to go with it. I've only written three
> so
> >> >far.
> >> >It's not even beta, but I would appreciate
> testing,
> >> >suggestions, etc.
> >> >SO any help would be appreciated.
> >> >Thanks in advance, Steve Barrett
> >> >
> >>
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