I can't figure out why this won't put buttons 1, 2, and 3, on the top of the frame, with buttons 4, 5 and 6 on the bottom? I realize there should be space between the top row and the bottom row.



import java.awt.BorderLayout;
import java.awt.FlowLayout;

import javax.swing.JButton;
import javax.swing.JFrame;
import javax.swing.JPanel;
import javax.swing.border.TitledBorder;


public class layoutExample
{
public static void main(String[] args)
{

JFrame frame = new JFrame();
frame.setLayout(new BorderLayout(20, 40));




JButton jn1 = new JButton("Button 1");
JButton jn2 = new JButton("Button 2");
JButton jn3 = new JButton("Button 3");

JPanel panelCenter = new JPanel();
panelCenter.add(jn1);
panelCenter.add(jn2);
panelCenter.add(jn3);
frame.add(panelCenter, BorderLayout.CENTER);



JButton jn4 = new JButton("Button 4");
JButton jn5 = new JButton("Button 5");
JButton jn6 = new JButton("Button 6");


JPanel panelCenter2 = new JPanel();
panelCenter.add(jn4);
panelCenter.add(jn5);
panelCenter.add(jn6);
frame.add(panelCenter2, BorderLayout.SOUTH);

frame.setSize(570, 80);
frame.setLocationRelativeTo(null);
frame.setDefaultCloseOperation(JFrame.EXIT_ON_CLOSE);
frame.setVisible(true);

}
}

You are declared panelCenter2, but you still add buttons to panelCenter.

As quuba said, you have declared panelCenter2 but you are still adding the JButtons jn4, jn5 and jn6 to panelCentre1 - which is positioned using BorderLayout.CENTER. Hence why your last three buttons are not positioned in the SOUTH. One of the pitfalls of "copy and paste" ! P.S. also, please use [CODE=java] tags - it makes reading code so much easier.