JPanel GridBagLayout start from top instead of center

Question

I´ve been trying to make a dashboard where the main menu buttons are listed from top of the dashboard to bottom, but setting

    gridBagConstraints.gridx = 10;
    gridBagConstraints.gridy = 0;

starts in center of the panel instead at the top. I tried setting gridBagConstraints.anchor = GridBagConstraints.FIRST_LINE_START and GridBagConstraints.NORT as well as NORTHWEST, but that did nothing.

Since there is a large panel on the side of the menu, I can't have the buttons auto fit into the (the weighty=1 option), otherwise the buttons become elongated.

Is there a way to force the buttons to make a list, or a way of doing this with another layout?

Answer 1

This is a common pattern. Generally, when you want to force the alignment of the components to a particular edge, you place a filler component on the opposite side and set it to fill the remaining empty space

import java.awt.Color;
import java.awt.EventQueue;
import java.awt.GridBagConstraints;
import java.awt.GridBagLayout;
import javax.swing.JFrame;
import javax.swing.JLabel;
import javax.swing.JPanel;

public class Test {

    public static void main(String[] args) {
        new Test();
    }

    public Test() {
        EventQueue.invokeLater(new Runnable() {
            @Override
            public void run() {
                JFrame frame = new JFrame();
                frame.setLayout(new GridBagLayout());
                GridBagConstraints gbc = new GridBagConstraints();
                gbc.gridx = 0;
                gbc.gridwidth = GridBagConstraints.REMAINDER;

                frame.add(new JLabel("This is a line"), gbc);
                frame.add(new JLabel("This is another line"), gbc);
                frame.add(new JLabel("This is show off line"), gbc);

                gbc.weighty = 1;
                JPanel filler = new JPanel();
                filler.setBackground(Color.RED);

                frame.add(filler, gbc);

                frame.pack();
                frame.setLocationRelativeTo(null);
                frame.setVisible(true);
            }
        });
    }
}

ps I'd normally make the filler component transparent, but this is for demonstration purposes