JavaFX GridPane column sizing

Question

I'm trying to make a window with a certain layout using 2 columns, but I can't quite get it to work the way I want.

First, some simplified example code:

import javafx.application.Application;
import javafx.geometry.Insets;
import javafx.scene.Scene;
import javafx.scene.control.Button;
import javafx.scene.control.Label;
import javafx.scene.control.Spinner;
import javafx.scene.layout.GridPane;
import javafx.stage.Stage;

public class GridTest extends Application {
    @Override
    public void start(final Stage stage) throws Exception {
        final GridPane grid = new GridPane();
        grid.setHgap(5);
        grid.setVgap(5);
        grid.setPadding(new Insets(10, 10, 10, 10));

        grid.add(new Label("Something:"), 0, 0);
        final Spinner<?> s1 = new Spinner<>();
        grid.add(s1, 1, 0);

        grid.add(new Label("Another thing:"), 0, 1);
        final Spinner<?> s2 = new Spinner<>();
        grid.add(s2, 1, 1);

        final Button b = new Button("A button");
        grid.add(b, 0, 2, 2, 1);

        stage.setScene(new Scene(grid, 400, 150));
        stage.show();
    }

    public static void main(final String... args) {
        launch(args);
    }
}

Here is what I want:

• the spinners and the button should use all available width
• the labels should always keep their preferred width, and never change their size
• when I make the window wider, the spinners and the button should grow
• when I make the window narrower, the spinners and the button should shrink, but not below their preferred width

I tried using all sorts of constraints, but I couldn't get everything to work right. I think the main problem I found was that after getting the spinners to use the available width, they refused to shrink when narrowing the window.

I'm using Oracle JDK 1.8.0_60 in Linux.

Answer 1

This seems to be a Spinner bug , I'm getting much better results if I use TextField s instead.

Example:

import javafx.application.Application;
import javafx.geometry.Insets;
import javafx.scene.Scene;
import javafx.scene.control.Button;
import javafx.scene.control.Label;
import javafx.scene.control.TextField;
import javafx.scene.layout.ColumnConstraints;
import javafx.scene.layout.GridPane;
import javafx.scene.layout.Priority;
import javafx.stage.Stage;

public class GridTest extends Application {
    @Override
    public void start(final Stage stage) throws Exception {
        final GridPane grid = new GridPane();
        grid.setHgap(5);
        grid.setVgap(5);
        grid.setPadding(new Insets(10, 10, 10, 10));

        ColumnConstraints cc = new ColumnConstraints();
        cc.setMinWidth(GridPane.USE_PREF_SIZE);
        grid.getColumnConstraints().add(cc);
        cc = new ColumnConstraints();
        cc.setMinWidth(GridPane.USE_PREF_SIZE);
        cc.setHgrow(Priority.ALWAYS);
        grid.getColumnConstraints().add(cc);

        grid.add(new Label("Something:"), 0, 0);
        final TextField t1 = new TextField();
        grid.add(t1, 1, 0);

        grid.add(new Label("Another thing:"), 0, 1);
        final TextField t2 = new TextField();
        grid.add(t2, 1, 1);

        final Button b = new Button("A button");
        b.setMaxWidth(Double.MAX_VALUE);
        grid.add(b, 0, 2, 2, 1);

        stage.setScene(new Scene(grid, 400, 150));
        stage.show();
    }

    public static void main(final String... args) {
        launch(args);
    }
}

But replace the TextField s with Spinner s and all hell breaks loose...