Using Flex Builder 2 > Developing a Flex Application User Interface > Building a Flex User Interface > Laying out your user interface

Laying out your user interface

To lay out a Flex user interface, you typically start by inserting and positioning components in a container that has absolute positioning, and then defining layout constraints for the components so that they adjust automatically when a user resizes the application window.

In some situations, using nested layout containers such as the VBox containers is preferable to using absolute positioning. See Using Layout Containers in Flex 2 Developer's Guide. These situations include the following:

• When controls might be dynamically sized to fit their content--as in the case of localized strings, for example--and the controls need to push each other out of the way so they don't overlap.
• When you want multiple columns that are the same size or that need to remain a specific percentage width.

This section contains the following topics:

• About constraint-based layouts
• Inserting and positioning components in the layout
• Setting layout constraints for components

Related topics

• Adding navigator containers
• Adding View States and Transitions

Flex 2.01