button positioning

hi im trying to create a frame with 3 buttons down the left hand side of the frame and a text area on the right hand side.
I have been trying to use the GridBagLayout but i cant seem to position anything no matter where i say to put the buttons or what size i want the buttons to be when i run the program all i get is 1 button showing and if i resize the frame the button resizes with it.
is the GridBagLayout able to do what i want and if so how do i go about positioning the buttons.
if not could you tell me what layout is best suited.

GridBagLayout has the ability to do what you need, but there are far easier Layout Managers available to do your task.

I recommend using GridLayout for this task, as it is very easy and useful.

The ways you could do this are:

• Use a JFrame's default LayoutManager (BorderLayout) to add one JPanel to BorderLayout.WEST and add another JPanel to BorderLayout.EAST where each JPanel uses a GridLayout of 3x1 (Row x Column).
  
• Another way would be to change the JFrame's LayoutManager to GridLayout of 1x2 and then add two JPanels like the above.
  
• Or change the JFrame's LayoutManger to 3x2 and add all components to the JFrame.

Which ever approach you take (from my suggestion), you will be using GridLayout, so follow the link I provided for a guide.

Heres an example of what I mean.

Code java:

---

    public JPanel jButtonPanel(){
    JPanel buttonPanel = new JPanel();
    buttonPanel.setLayout(new GridLayout(3,1));
 
    buttonPanel.add(myButton);
    buttonPanel.add(myButton2);
    buttonPanel.add(myButton3);
 
    return buttonPanel;
    }

---

You would then add jButtonPanel() to your JFrame, and do the same for jTextFieldPanel().
Hope this helps.