Thread: Toolbar max width

Hi there.

I am really struggling with a toolbar right now. No matter what I try it just wont accept its maximum width.

This is how it is build:
1) JToolBar (flow layout)
2) A JTabbedPane within the JToolBar
3) A JPanel (border layout) as a tab within the JTabbedPane
4) A JScrollPane within the JPanel (center)
5) A JList within the viewport view of the JScrollPane

I tried to set the MaximumSize of any single or all of these components. It never worked.
No matter what I did, the toolbar always was the size of the biggest item in the JList.

Here are some screenshots with the code used to create them:
toolbar1.jpg

		JToolBar toolBar = new JToolBar();
		add(toolBar, BorderLayout.EAST);
 
		JTabbedPane toolBarPnl = new JTabbedPane(JTabbedPane.TOP);
		toolBar.add(toolBarPnl);

toolbar2.jpg

		JToolBar toolBar = new JToolBar();
		add(toolBar, BorderLayout.EAST);
 
		JTabbedPane toolBarPnl = new JTabbedPane(JTabbedPane.TOP);
		toolBarPnl.setMaximumSize(new Dimension(256, Integer.MAX_VALUE));
		toolBar.add(toolBarPnl);

Notice that this time the JScrollPane is indeed capped at 256 pixels in width, but the toolbar itself is still growing as large as the biggest item in the JList.

I would really appreciate if somebody could tell me what I need to do to keep the toolbar from growing in width.



On a sidenote, I would also like to ask if anybody could tell me how to make a JToolBar resizable.

Thank you all very much.

I have actually made a small test program which shows my problem:

import java.awt.BorderLayout;
import java.awt.Dimension;
import java.awt.EventQueue;
 
import javax.swing.JFrame;
import javax.swing.JPanel;
import javax.swing.border.EmptyBorder;
import javax.swing.DefaultListModel;
import javax.swing.JToolBar;
import javax.swing.JTabbedPane;
import javax.swing.JScrollPane;
import javax.swing.JList;
 
public class Test extends JFrame {
	private static final long serialVersionUID = 1L;
 
	public static void main(String[] args) {
		EventQueue.invokeLater(new Runnable() {
			public void run() {
				try {
					Test frame = new Test();
					frame.setVisible(true);
				} catch (Exception e) {
					e.printStackTrace();
				}
			}
		});
	}
 
	private static final Dimension MAX_WIDTH_256 = new Dimension(256, Integer.MAX_VALUE);
 
	public Test() {
		setDefaultCloseOperation(JFrame.EXIT_ON_CLOSE);
		setBounds(100, 100, 450, 300);
		JPanel contentPane = new JPanel();
		contentPane.setBorder(new EmptyBorder(5, 5, 5, 5));
		contentPane.setLayout(new BorderLayout(0, 0));
		setContentPane(contentPane);
 
		JToolBar toolBar = new JToolBar();
		toolBar.setMaximumSize(MAX_WIDTH_256);
		contentPane.add(toolBar, BorderLayout.EAST);
 
		JTabbedPane tabbedPane = new JTabbedPane(JTabbedPane.TOP);
		tabbedPane.setMaximumSize(MAX_WIDTH_256);
		toolBar.add(tabbedPane);
 
		JPanel tab = new JPanel();
		tab.setLayout(new BorderLayout(0, 0));
		tab.setMaximumSize(MAX_WIDTH_256);
		tabbedPane.addTab("Some Strings", null, tab, null);
 
		JScrollPane scrollPane = new JScrollPane();
		scrollPane.setMaximumSize(MAX_WIDTH_256);
		tab.add(scrollPane, BorderLayout.CENTER);
 
		DefaultListModel<String> listModel = new DefaultListModel<String>();
		for (String str : new String[] {
				"Small",
				"Bigger",
				"Even Bigger",
				"Already quite Big",
				"This one is really really big, it has an insane size and showing it in a list would be a really stupid idea!",
		}) {
			listModel.addElement(str);
		}
 
		JList<String> list = new JList<>();
		list.setMaximumSize(MAX_WIDTH_256);
		list.setModel(listModel);
		scrollPane.setViewportView(list);
 
		JPanel panel = new JPanel();
		panel.setPreferredSize(new Dimension(Integer.MAX_VALUE, Integer.MAX_VALUE));
		contentPane.add(panel, BorderLayout.CENTER);
	}
 
}

If anybody could make the toolbar accept its maximum size I would really appreciate.