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Any user interface is built up of various Widgets which are positioned next to each other to present a complete interface. Placing these widgets next to each other is done by providing rules to a Layout Manager. The Layout Manager is responsible for placing widgets on the screen, which it does based on programmer specified rules, combined with the amount of screen-space the user has given the application.
In terms of an API, there are slight differences between AWT and Swing layout managers. It is however, possible to use them together, but this is at the expense of not using the extra features provided by Swing layout managers. The most notable difference between the AWT and Swing layout managers is that the MaximumSize of a widget is not used by the AWT implementation.
External links
Javadoc:
AWT layout manager: http://java.sun.com/j2se/1.4/docs/api/java/awt/LayoutManager.html
Swing Layout manager http://java.sun.com/j2se/1.4/docs/api/java/awt/LayoutManager2.html
Java tutorial:
http://java.sun.com/docs/books/tutorial/uiswing/layout/index.html
Written by Thomas Zander
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