How to place the GUI components in correct order

[impact]

Hi,
I have done following code, it works but always I see the "search" button comes first and then the "text area". Can you please show me how to get this other way around?

As you can understand I novice in java, so if you can explain me what actually you did, it will be very helpful.

Thank you very much.

package test;



import java.awt.BorderLayout;
import java.awt.Dimension;
import java.awt.Font;
import javax.swing.AbstractButton;
import javax.swing.JButton;
import javax.swing.JPanel;
import javax.swing.JFrame;

import java.awt.event.ActionEvent;
import java.awt.event.ActionListener;
import java.awt.event.KeyEvent;
import java.io.BufferedReader;
import java.io.InputStreamReader;
import java.net.URL;

import javax.swing.BorderFactory;
import javax.swing.ImageIcon;
import javax.swing.JComboBox;
import javax.swing.JComponent;
import javax.swing.JLabel;
import javax.swing.JTextField;

public class NewClass2 extends JPanel implements ActionListener {
    protected JButton b1;
    protected JTextField textField;

    
    public NewClass2() {     
        b1 = new JButton("Search");
        b1.setVerticalTextPosition(AbstractButton.CENTER);
        b1.setHorizontalTextPosition(AbstractButton.LEADING);
        b1.setMnemonic(KeyEvent.VK_D);
        b1.setActionCommand("disable");

        //Listen for actions on buttons 1 and 3.
        b1.addActionListener(this);
       
        b1.setToolTipText("Go");
        

        //Add Components to this container, using the default FlowLayout.
        TextDemo();
        add(b1);
        
    }
    
    // This is for Button
    public void actionPerformed(ActionEvent e) {
        if ("disable".equals(e.getActionCommand())) {
            
            b1.setEnabled(true);
            
        } else {
           
            b1.setEnabled(true);
            
        }
    }  

    /**
     * Text area
     * @return 
     */
    public void TextDemo() {
    
    textField = new JTextField(20);
    textField.addActionListener(this);
    
     }
    
    public void TextDemoactionPerformed(ActionEvent evt) {
    }
        
    
    /**
     * Create the GUI and show it.  For thread safety, 
     * this method should be invoked from the 
     * event-dispatching thread.
     */
    private static void createAndShowGUI() {

        //Create and set up the window.
        JFrame frame = new JFrame("Version 1.0");
        frame.setDefaultCloseOperation(JFrame.EXIT_ON_CLOSE);

        NewClass2 newContentPane = new NewClass2();

        newContentPane.setOpaque(true); //content panes must be opaque
        frame.setContentPane(newContentPane);
        frame.setSize(new Dimension(600, 600));
        
        frame.add(new TextDemo());

        
        //Display the window.
        frame.pack();
        frame.setVisible(true);
    }

    public static void main(String[] args) {
        //Schedule a job for the event-dispatching thread:
        //creating and showing this application's GUI.
        javax.swing.SwingUtilities.invokeLater(new Runnable() {
            public void run() {
                createAndShowGUI(); 
            }
        });
    }
}

[hardwired]

Compiling your posted code:

C:\jexp>javac newclass2.java
newclass2.java:92: cannot find symbol
symbol  : class TextDemo
location: class NewClass2
        frame.add(new TextDemo());
                      ^
1 error

        // This line sets the contentPane to "newContentPane".
        frame.setContentPane(newContentPane);
        ...
        // This line tries to add a new class
        // (that must extend Component) to the
        // center section of the contentPane.
        frame.add(new TextDemo());

If you are going to have NewClass2 extend JPanel and to use an instance of it as your contentPane then you could add the textComponent to the panels layout in the class constructor. To fix this with minimal changes to your code try:

        //Add Components to this container, using the default FlowLayout.
        add(getTextComponent());
        add(b1);
    ...
    /**
     * Text area
     * @return 
     */
    public JTextField getTextComponent() {
        textField = new JTextField(20);
        textField.addActionListener(this);
        return textField;
     }
    
    public void TextDemoactionPerformed(ActionEvent evt) {
    }

[Jesdisciple]

Don't you get a compile error from that?

        frame.add(new TextDemo());

There are a few things wrong with this, but ultimately it just needs to be removed. (TextDemo is called in the NewClass2 constructor.)

For that matter, you don't need the TextDemo method at all, because you never reuse the logic it contains. So put its contents into the NewClass2 constructor, like so:

    public NewClass2() {     
        //...
        //Add Components to this container, using the default FlowLayout.
        textField = new JTextField(20);
        textField.addActionListener(this);
        add(b1);
        
    }

Also, I don't see that the text field is ever added to the panel, so pass it to add - before add(b1) so the components are arranged in that order.

    public NewClass2() {     
        //...
        //Add Components to this container, using the default FlowLayout.
        textField = new JTextField(20);
        textField.addActionListener(this);
        add(textField);
        add(b1);
        
    }

I believe that will do what you want.

EDIT: Woops, just looked and saw the post conflict.