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BorderLayout manager is used to position five components in five different regions in a container. These five regions are north, south, east, west and center, where, each component is played in each of these regions. Each of component positioned at the side has a narrow width, while the component at center part is given the largest space.

Note : Using BorderLayout manager, we can only add one component in a particular region. If we add more than one component in any region, only the last added component will be visible in that region.

The region such as four sides and the center part are referred as constant values, shown in the table -:

Constructors of BorderLayout

LayoutManager is an interface which is implemented by BorderLayout manager class.

An example display the use of BorderLayout Manager.

• In the upcoming code, we have going to create components such as - four buttons that will be positioned at the four different sides and a textarea, placed at the center, JPanel.
• By default, JPanel uses the layout manager FlowLayout. So, we will call setLayout() method of JPanel class and pass it the object of BorderLayout class, to set the position of the components in JPanel as per the positioning defined by BorderLayout manager.
• Next, we will add each component to a specific region in the JPanel, using BorderLayout constant values.

Finally, JPanel is added to the container, JFrame.

import javax.swing.*;
import java.awt.*;
import java.awt.event.*;

public class BorderLayoutEx 
{
public static void main(String... ar)
{
SwingUtilities.invokeLater(new Runnable() {
public void run()
{
new A();
}
});

}//Closing the main method
}//Closing the class A


class A 
{
JTextArea textArea;
JButton button1, button2, button3, button4;
JFrame jf;
JPanel jp;


A()
{
jf = new JFrame("BorderLayout Example");
jp= new JPanel();

button1 = new JButton("North");
button2 = new JButton("South");
button3 = new JButton("East");
button4 = new JButton("West");


textArea = new JTextArea(4,4); //calling TextField(int row, int columns)


//Setting the positioning of the components in container, JPanel, to BorderLayout
jp.setLayout(new BorderLayout()); //

jp.add(button1, BorderLayout.NORTH); 	//Adding button1, to the NORTH, top side 
jp.add(button2, BorderLayout.SOUTH);	//Adding button2, to the SOUTH, bottom side
jp.add(button3, BorderLayout.EAST);	//Adding button3, to the EAST, far right side
jp.add(button4, BorderLayout.WEST);	//Adding button4, to the North, far left side
jp.add(textArea, BorderLayout.CENTER);	//Adding textarea, to the CENTER

 

jf.add(jp);

jf.setSize(320,200);
jf.setVisible(true); 
}

}

When you run the code, you are presented a window that contains the components such as four buttons and a blank textarea positioned using BorderLayout manager. As you may see in the figure1, the center area covers the maximun space, while four buttons at the sides have a narrow width.


In the figure2, we have typed in the textarea, which was positioned at the center of containter, JFrame.

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