Is it possible to make the elements inside a JPanel with GridBagLayout to start from the top left?

Question

I have a Swing Form that contains a JScrollPane(activityScrollPane) for a JPanel(activityPanel). The panel contains a JTextField and a JButton (that is used to add more fields to the Panel). Now the problem is that the elements start from the center of the panel as in the image below (with the borders marking the activityScrollPane boundary)

Following is the code I am currently using to make the scroll pane and associated components.

 //part of the code for creating the ScrollPane

        final JPanel activityPanel = new JPanel(new GridBagLayout());
        gbc.gridx=0;
        gbc.gridy=0;
        JScrollPane activityScrollPane = new JScrollPane(activityPanel); 
        //adding activity fields
        activityFields = new ArrayList<JTextField>();
        fieldIndex = 0;
        activityFields.add(new JTextField(30));

        final GridBagConstraints activityGBC = new GridBagConstraints();
        activityGBC.gridx=0;
        activityGBC.gridy=0;
        activityGBC.anchor = GridBagConstraints.FIRST_LINE_START;
        activityPanel.add(activityFields.get(fieldIndex),activityGBC);

        fieldIndex++;
        JButton btn_more = (new JButton("more"));
        activityGBC.gridx=1;
        activityPanel.add(btn_more,activityGBC);

How can I make the JTextField and the JButton or for that matter any component to appear on the top left corner of the JScrollPane. I have already tried using

activityConstraints.anchor = GridBagConstraints.NORTHWEST;

as pointed in the SO post, but it does not at all seem to work.

Answer 1

You simply forgot to provide any weightx/weighty values, atleast one having a non-zero value will do. have a look at this code example :

import java.awt.*;
import javax.swing.*;
public class GridBagLayoutDemo
{
    private JTextField tfield1;
    private JButton button1;

    private void displayGUI()
    {
        JFrame frame = new JFrame("GridBagLayout Demo");
        frame.setDefaultCloseOperation(JFrame.EXIT_ON_CLOSE);

        JPanel contentPane = new JPanel();
        contentPane.setLayout(new GridBagLayout());

        tfield1 = new JTextField(10);
        GridBagConstraints gbc = new GridBagConstraints();
        gbc.anchor = GridBagConstraints.FIRST_LINE_START;   
        gbc.weightx = 1.0;
        gbc.weighty = 1.0;  
        gbc.gridx = 0;
        gbc.gridy = 0;
        gbc.fill = GridBagConstraints.HORIZONTAL;       
        contentPane.add(tfield1, gbc);

        button1 = new JButton("More");
        gbc.gridx = 1;
        gbc.gridy = 0;
        gbc.fill = GridBagConstraints.NONE;
        contentPane.add(button1, gbc);

        frame.setContentPane(contentPane);
        frame.pack();
        frame.setVisible(true);
    }

    public static void main(String... args)
    {
        SwingUtilities.invokeLater(new Runnable()
        {
            public void run()
            {
                new GridBagLayoutDemo().displayGUI();
            }
        });
    }
}

Latest EDIT : No spacing along Y-Axis

import java.awt.*;
import javax.swing.*;
public class GridBagLayoutDemo
{
    private JTextField tfield1;
    private JButton button1;
    private JTextField tfield2;
    private JButton button2;

    private void displayGUI()
    {
        JFrame frame = new JFrame("GridBagLayout Demo");
        frame.setDefaultCloseOperation(JFrame.EXIT_ON_CLOSE);

        JPanel contentPane = new JPanel();
        contentPane.setLayout(new GridBagLayout());

        tfield1 = new JTextField(10);
        GridBagConstraints gbc = new GridBagConstraints();
        gbc.anchor = GridBagConstraints.FIRST_LINE_START;   
        gbc.weightx = 1.0;
        //gbc.weighty = 0.2;    
        gbc.gridx = 0;
        gbc.gridy = 0;
        gbc.fill = GridBagConstraints.HORIZONTAL;       
        contentPane.add(tfield1, gbc);

        button1 = new JButton("More");
        gbc.gridx = 1;
        gbc.gridy = 0;
        gbc.fill = GridBagConstraints.NONE;
        contentPane.add(button1, gbc);

        tfield2 = new JTextField(10);
        gbc.weightx = 1.0;
        gbc.weighty = 0.2;  
        gbc.gridx = 0;
        gbc.gridy = 1;
        gbc.fill = GridBagConstraints.HORIZONTAL;       
        contentPane.add(tfield2, gbc);

        button2 = new JButton("More");
        gbc.gridx = 1;
        gbc.gridy = 1;
        gbc.fill = GridBagConstraints.NONE;
        contentPane.add(button2, gbc);

        JScrollPane scroller = new JScrollPane(contentPane);

        frame.add(scroller);
        frame.pack();
        frame.setVisible(true);
    }

    public static void main(String... args)
    {
        SwingUtilities.invokeLater(new Runnable()
        {
            public void run()
            {
                new GridBagLayoutDemo().displayGUI();
            }
        });
    }
}