Floris' Blog

The original version of JavaFX contained several layout managers, which made using JavaFX as a replacement for Swing-coding attractive. The current version includes just two very simple layout managers. There will be others, but it may take some time.
As a solution I’ve tried jfxtras. This already provides some relief, by giving you dialogs and a usable Grid.

Continuing my search I came across MiGLayout. I had heard of this project before, but never paid it much attention. This time however, I saw mentions of providing a JavaFX wrapper around it. Today I decided to play a little bit with MiGLayout in a Swing application. I did a very simple quick mock-up, while reading the quick start guide. And it was easy!

You can provide the constraints as strings (hmmmm, no compile-time checks) or as objects. The string constraints end up being very easy to use and not necessitate compile time checks. A gotcha was that you need to separate constraints using a comma. And passing “debug” as the fist argument to the layout gives you some boxes around components and cells, providing valuable feedback on what you’re doing.

This is a really cool manager. I hope a JavaFX wrapper will be available soon!