dcsimg

Why doesn't setDividerLocation() work for my JSplitPane?

Created May 4, 2012

Jay Detwiler

I'm guessing you have the same problem I did. At least I thought it was a problem. If you call this method while you're creating your JSplitPane because naturally, you know at creation time you want your pane to be 25/75 or 40/60 or something you don't see it when it comes up. Well, according to Sun this isn't a bug.

Their response to bug #4276222:

From the javadoc for setDividerLocation(double):

This method is implemented in terms of setDividerLocation(int).

This method immediately changes the size of the receiver based on its current size. If the receiver is not correctly realized and on screen, this method will have no effect (new dividier location will become (current size * proportionalLocation) which is 0).

So, as you can see the JSplitPane MUST be visible invoking this method otherwise it will not have the desired effect.

Here's a little bit of a hack to get around the problem: 

    public void setDividerLocation(double proportionalLocation) {
        if (!isPainted) {       
            hasProportionalLocation = true;
            this.proportionalLocation = proportionalLocation;
        }
        else
            super.setDividerLocation(proportionalLocation);
    }

    public void paint(Graphics g) {
        if (!isPainted) {       
            if (hasProportionalLocation)
                super.setDividerLocation(proportionalLocation);
            isPainted = true;
        }
        super.paint(g);
    }

override these methods in a subclass of JSplitPane and it can store the proportion you want until it is painted for the first time.