4.3. Layout Management

In each of the examples presented in the previous section, the widget layouts are very simple. Widgets were either positioned relative to their parents using the setBounds() method (null layout) or they were designed to fill their parent entirely using a FillLayout. Eclipse provides several more powerful layout management algorithms that can be used to aesthetically place widgets under a variety of conditions.

Most layout managers in Eclipse trace their heritage to VisualAge for Smalltalk, and in particular, to the layout managers used to construct the wizards and dialogs in VisualAge for Java. As such, they were well thought out and thoroughly tested before ever being converted into Java as part of the Eclipse framework. Interestingly enough, the newest Eclipse layout manager, FormLayout, is based on the oldest and most powerful VisualAge for Smalltalk layout manager.