FlowLayout on top of GridLayout not working

Question

I'm trying to create a hangman game and so far it's coming along GREAT, but the layout design just doesn't seem to fall into place! The alphabet is supposed to end up in a `FlowLayout` order on top of the Hangman picture with the buttons "Restart", "Help" "Add New Word" and "Exit" at the bottom! What am I doing wrong? ``` import java.awt.*; import java.awt.event.*; import javax.swing.*; import java.io.*; public class Hangman extends JFrame { int i = 0; static JPanel panel; static JPanel panel2; static JPanel panel3; public Hangman() { JButton[] buttons = new JButton[26]; panel = new JPanel(new FlowLayout()); panel2 = new JPanel(); panel3 = new JPanel(); JButton btnRestart = new JButton("Restart"); btnRestart.addActionListener(new ActionListener(){ public void actionPerformed(ActionEvent e) { } }); JButton btnNewWord = new JButton("Add New Word"); btnNewWord.addActionListener(new ActionListener(){ public void actionPerformed(ActionEvent e) { try { FileWriter fw = new FileWriter("Words.…

Accepted Answer

Here are a few suggestions:

Use a `GridLayout` for the top panel; in this case, zero means the number of rows is determined by the specified number of columns and the total number of components in the layout:

```
JPanel north = new JPanel(new GridLayout(0, 9));
```

Here's an outline of how you can make your center panel have a reasonable initial size; note how you can draw relative to the current size:

```
JPanel center = new JPanel() {

private static final int N = 256;
    private static final String S = "Todo...";

@Override
    protected void paintComponent(Graphics g) {
        super.paintComponent(g);
        int dx = (getWidth() - g.getFontMetrics().stringWidth(S)) / 2;
        int dy = getHeight() / 2;
        g.drawString(S, dx, dy);
    }

@Override
    public Dimension getPreferredSize() {
        return new Dimension(N, N);
    }
};
```

You can construct your button names like this:

```
for (int i = 0; i < 26; i++) {
    String letter = String.valueOf((char) (i + 'A'));
    buttons[i] = new JButton(letter);
    north.add(buttons[i]);
}
```

Make your panels instance variables and start on the event dispatch thread:

```
EventQueue.invokeLater(new Runnable() {

@Override
    public void run() {
        Hangman frame = new Hangman();
        frame.setDefaultCloseOperation(EXIT_ON_CLOSE);
        frame.add(frame.north, BorderLayout.NORTH);
        frame.add(frame.center, BorderLayout.CENTER);
        frame.add(frame.south, BorderLayout.SOUTH);
        frame.pack();
        frame.setLocationByPlatform(true);
        frame.setVisible(true);
    }
});
```

FlowLayout on top of GridLayout not working

Solution

Problem