A flow layout arranges components in a directional flow, much like lines of text in a paragraph. The flow direction is determined by the container's componentOrientation property and may be one of two values:

• ComponentOrientation.LEFT_TO_RIGHT
• ComponentOrientation.RIGHT_TO_LEFT

Flow layouts are typically used to arrange buttons in a panel. It arranges buttons horizontally until no more buttons fit on the same line. The line alignment is determined by the align property. The possible values are:

• LEFT
• RIGHT
• CENTER
• LEADING
• TRAILING

For example, the following picture shows an applet using the flow layout manager (its default layout manager) to position three buttons:

Here is the code for this applet:

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 import java.awt.*;
 import java.applet.Applet;

 public class myButtons extends Applet {
     Button button1, button2, button3;
     public void init() {
         button1 = new Button("Ok");
         button2 = new Button("Open");
         button3 = new Button("Close");
         add(button1);
         add(button2);
         add(button3);
     }
 }
 

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A flow layout lets each component assume its natural (preferred) size.