Avoiding the GridBag: The GridBagLayout is kind of the brocoli of the Swing layout managers. It's good for you, there are people who seem to really like it, but it's brocoli. In Java Today we feature a java.net project named packer. In many ways the new approach isn't much more accessible to new users but the code that a complex layout would require is greatly reduced. » Read more
(July 22, 2003 6:25AM PT)

The java.net Packer project: The GridBagLayout is powerful but new users find it confusing and often opt to use a simpler and less powerful layout manager. The java.net packer project is designed to offer you a simpler interface to the GridBagLayout features. The project home page presents an introductory example that compares using the dynamic duo of GridBagLayout and GridBagContraints with using either the Packer class or the PackAs interface. If the examples interest you, follow the links to download the jar file and the associated docs.
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Add concurrent processing with message-driven beans: You can often improve the user experience in a J2EE application by introducing concurrency. In his JavaWorld article Add concurrent processing with message-driven beans, Amit Poddar presents three different techniques and advises, " The best solution depends upon many factors such as peak load, cost of creating temporary queues, JMS provider capabilities, hosting server configuration, and so on. You should consider all these factors before finalizing your application's solution."
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