GridBagLayout panels alignment

Question

I have a little issue with the GridBag Layout Manager. I am trying to display 9 panels like this:

Answer 1

I never been a big fan of GridBagLayout. So for me I would break your GUI down into multiple panels and would probably use multiple GridLayout to achieve what you want. Something like:

JPanel top = new JPanel( new GridLayout(0, 5) );
top.add(s1);
JPanel s23 = new JPanel( new GridLayout(2, 0) );
s23.add(s2);
s23.add(s3);
top.add(s23);
...

JPanel bottom = new JPanel( new GridLayout(0, 2) );
bottom.add(s8);
bottom.add(s9);

JPanel main = new JPanel( appropriate layout manager );
main.add(top);
main.add(bottom);