Centering a JComponent in the CENTER area of BorderLayout?

[Joe Vahabzadeh]

All,

I've got a JFrame whose contentPane has the typical BorderLayout setup.

I want to put a JComponent in the BorderLayout.CENTER area, so I do the following:

myFrame.getContentPane().setLayout(new BorderLayout()); // I think it's BorderLayout by default
myFrame.getContentPane().add(myJComponent, BorderLayout.CENTER());
myJComponent.setBorder(new LineBorder(Color.RED, 3));

Naturally, since myJComponent is the ONLY thing that's been added, since it's in the CENTER, the component is expanded to fill the entire contentPane, as the red border will indicate.

HOWEVER, the actual visible part of myJComponent then gets shoved into the upper-left corner, whereas I want it centered both horizontally and vertically.

I've tried using setAlignmentX and setAlignmentY on the myJComponent to no avail. I have a feeling I'm missing something dreadfully obvious, but can't figure out what it is.

Thanks in advance for any guidance anyone can give me on this.
[ February 22, 2008: Message edited by: Joe Vahabzadeh ]

[Michael Dunn]

simple demo using GridBagLayout and a JLabel (don't know what your JComponent is)

    
import javax.swing.*;
import java.awt.*;
import java.awt.event.*;
class Testing
{
  public void buildGUI()
  {
    JLabel label = new JLabel("Hello World");
    label.setBorder(BorderFactory.createLineBorder(Color.BLACK));
    JPanel p = new JPanel(new GridBagLayout());
    p.add(label,new GridBagConstraints());
    JFrame f = new JFrame();
    f.getContentPane().add(p);
    f.setSize(400,300);
    f.setLocationRelativeTo(null);
    f.setDefaultCloseOperation(JFrame.EXIT_ON_CLOSE);
    f.setVisible(true);
  }
  public static void main(String[] args)
  {
    SwingUtilities.invokeLater(new Runnable(){
      public void run(){
        new Testing().buildGUI();
      }
    });
  }
}