Hiding element in Java Swing inside a GridBagLayout

Question

What you have to know :

• I have a GridBagLayout inside a panel.
• Inside my GridBagLayout I have 4 elements :
  • JLabel title at gridy = 0
  • textfield username at gridy = 1
  • textfield address IP at gridy = 2
  • error message in setVisible(false) at gridy = 3

If I don't touch anything, this is working perfectly well.

But if I setVisible(true) the error message, the whole view moves up. Making me think that the setVisible(false) is not really hiding the item but "removing it from the panel".

How can I hide my item without "removing it from the panel" ?

Answer 1

Don't use setVisible to show and hide elements. Pretty much only use that method for Frames. You rather want to use a TabbedPane , where you don't show the tabs and don't have any borders, and simply switch the tab in your code to a pane which has nothing on it from a pane which has some components.