BTW, I have tried the GridBagConstraints.anchor set to NORTH with no
luck either.

Todd

In Agent you can include attachments, but most participants go berserk
if you use the feature.
see http://mindprod.com/jgloss/forteagent.html

What you pretty well have to do is use a program like FastStone
Capture then post the pngs on a website somewhere and post the URL.

It looks to me that you could do this my overriding getPreferredSize
on your subpanels so that it gives one size for collapsed and another
for expanded.

[snip]

Maybe you should create an SSCCE

Here's one I threw together for you
-----------------------------------8<----------------------------------------
import java.awt.Color;
import java.awt.Component;
import java.awt.Dimension;
import java.awt.event.ActionEvent;
import java.awt.event.ActionListener;

import javax.swing.Box;
import javax.swing.BoxLayout;
import javax.swing.JButton;
import javax.swing.JFrame;
import javax.swing.JPanel;
import javax.swing.JScrollPane;
import javax.swing.JTabbedPane;
import javax.swing.JTextArea;
import javax.swing.SwingUtilities;

public class Shrinkables {

    public static void main(String[] args) {
        SwingUtilities.invokeLater(new Runnable() {
            public void run() {
                new Shrinkables();
            }
        });
    }

    Shrinkables() {

        JTabbedPane tabPane = new JTabbedPane();
        tabPane.add("Tab 1", new JScrollPane(new GroupPanel()));
        tabPane.add("Tab 2", new JScrollPane(new GroupPanel()));

        JFrame f = new JFrame("Layout problem");
        f.add(tabPane);
        f.setDefaultCloseOperation(JFrame.EXIT_ON_CLOSE);
        f.setPreferredSize(new Dimension(500, 300)); // ugh!
        f.pack();
        f.setVisible(true);
    }

    class GroupPanel extends JPanel {
        GroupPanel() {
            setLayout(new BoxLayout(this, BoxLayout.PAGE_AXIS));
            add(new ShrinkablePanel("subPanel1", Color.CYAN));
            add(new ShrinkablePanel("subPanel2", Color.GREEN));
            add(new ShrinkablePanel("subPanel3", Color.YELLOW));
            //add(Box.createVerticalGlue());
        }
    }

    class ShrinkablePanel extends JPanel implements ActionListener {
        boolean   shrunk = true;

        JTextArea area   = new JTextArea();

        String    essay  =
             "Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consetetur sadipscing\n"
           + " elitr,  sed diam nonumy eirmod tempor invidunt ut\n"
           + "labore et dolore magna aliquyam erat, sed diam\n"
           + "voluptua. At vero eos et accusam et justo duo\n"
           + "dolores et ea rebum. Stet clita kasd gubergren, no\n"
           + "sea takimata sanctus est Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet.\n"
           + "Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consetetur sadipscing";

        ShrinkablePanel(String name, Color color) {
            setLayout(new BoxLayout(this, BoxLayout.LINE_AXIS));
            setBackground(color);
            JButton b = new JButton(name);
            b.addActionListener(this);
            b.setAlignmentY(Component.TOP_ALIGNMENT);
            area.setAlignmentY(Component.TOP_ALIGNMENT);
            area.setBackground(color);
            add(b);
            add(area);
        }

        public void actionPerformed(ActionEvent e) {
            if (shrunk) {
                area.setText(essay);
            } else {
                area.setText("");
            }
            shrunk = !shrunk;
        }

    } // ShrinkablePanel

} // Shrinkables
------------------------------------- 8< -------------------------------

I am dense.  I need to understand what appearance you are getting vs
what you want.

If you want to freeze the positions of three subpanels at say exactly
1/3 of the space each all the time, You could write an EquispaceLayout
that positions at 1/n vertical units where n is the number of
components.