Brett Spell wrote:I'm not sure I understand what it is you're trying to accomplish. Which of the following are you trying to implement:
Be able to drop a component and have it stay where you dropped it Be able to manipulate the Z-order of what you dragged and dropped
If you want to have a component stay at an arbitrary position then yes, you'd need to consider using a null layout manager, though without knowing more about what you're trying to accomplish I suspect doing that will open up an even bigger can of worms for you.
To manipulate the Z-order of the components (i.e., which component is in front of / behind other components in the same container), take a look at Container.setZOrder.
I'll have to defer to Rob concerning the use of his ComponentMover, but it appears to be intended to be used to move windows, not just a specific component within a window.
Brett Spell wrote:I think I now understand better what you're trying to do: it's not that you want one component to be in front of or behind another visually, but rather you're using the Z-order as a proxy for the component's position within the BoxLayout-managed container. Is that correct?