Thread: Trouble getting my frame and panels to show up!?!?

I'm trying to add these two panels to my frame. I want my mainPanel1 to be in the top of my frame and mainPanel2 to be in the bottom. Therefore I thought I'm suppose to set layout to border layout like a did. A frame does display on my screen but there is nothing in it. I tried creating a border line and title thinking that I needed to make the panels visible some way but it's still not working. However, it seems to compile fine without any errors. Any ideas?

import javax.swing.*;
import java.awt.*;
import javax.swing.border.Border;
import javax.swing.border.LineBorder;
import javax.swing.border.TitledBorder;
 
public class resistortests extends javax.swing.JFrame
{
 
    public resistortests()
    {
 
        JPanel mainPanel1 = new JPanel(new BorderLayout());
        //mainPanel1.setLayout(new BorderLayout());
        mainPanel1.setBorder(new TitledBorder("mainPanel1"));
 
        JPanel mainPanel2 = new JPanel(new GridLayout());
        //mainPanel2.setLayout(new GridLayout(0,5));
        mainPanel2.setBorder(new TitledBorder("mainPanel2"));
 
        Font largeFont = new Font("TimesRoman", Font.BOLD, 20);
        Border lineBorder = new LineBorder(Color.BLACK,2);
 
        setLayout(new BorderLayout(0,5));
 
        add(mainPanel1, BorderLayout.NORTH);
        add(mainPanel2, BorderLayout.SOUTH);
 
 
    }
 
    public static void main(String args[])
    {
        JFrame resFrame = new JFrame("Resistor Lookup");
        resFrame.setSize(500, 500);
        resFrame.setLocationRelativeTo(null);
        resFrame.setDefaultCloseOperation(JFrame.EXIT_ON_CLOSE);
        resFrame.setVisible(true);
    }
 
}

You want 'resFrame' to be resistortests object:

resistortests resFrame = new resistortests();

Then set the name of the frame in the resistortests() constructor. You should also respect Java naming conventions and name your classes with Capital letters, appropriately camel-cased after that, so maybe "ResistorTests."

Nevermind I figured it out. I didn't create a instance of my object resistortests() in main.

Also I did a set layout to grid which didn't shrink the panels down in the North and South portions of the frame. Looking much nicer now.

--- Update ---

GregBrannon,

thanks for the reply