We have many screens where different types of GWT panels are used.
One common problem across many screens is that, content size is derived at runtime. So, if I define a height for a panel(Vertical/Horizontal/DockPanel) and when any new components are getting added within panel or content is more, panel height remains the same. So we are not able to see the contents. UI look and feel becomes worst.
How do we handle the height problems? Do we have to manually code to adjust every panel/widget height when something gets changed in screen. Is it not a very bad way of coding? Also, now we have datagrids at some places, if no of records are very less, we see a huge space left out below datagrid, not sure how do we handle these cases?
Updated below with few examples as per the comment: Do you mean to say that whenever we know that content grows vertically, we can always choose FlowPanel. Because, some of the screens we have used Vertical panel/Horizontal Panel and inside that when user clicks something a new fields getting added and shown. So Vertical Panel/Horizontal Panel height automatically not getting adjusted. One more example is that we have main Vertical Panel within a Dock Layout Panel content area and inside that there are some widgets whose content may vary. So now if I use a FlowPanel to the content which varies in size, what about outer panels? Will get it adjusted? Again to say the kind of panels we have used - Dock Layout Panel is used with fixed header, footer, left menu and Content area. A scroll panel is used within Content area. All our different widgets go inside this which is mix and match of horizontal/vertical/datagrids..etc.
FlowPanel
widget will behave exactly like an HTML<div/>
element, so it will grow vertically with content. - Strelok