JLayeredPane with a LayoutManager

JLayeredPane with a LayoutManager

The situation: drawing a stack of playing cards, like in the Solitaire
game. Nicely stacked.
To achieve this, I'm using a JLayeredPane in combination with a custom
implementation of the LayoutManager interface. The reason for using a
custom LayoutManager is that the stack orientation varies, sometimes the
playing cards cover each other completely, sometimes partially, and this
logic seems to be a good job for a LayoutManager, because this basically
boils down to setting the location of the cards.
So, the LayoutManager is responsible for setting the X- and Y-coordinates
of all components in my stack. The JLayeredPane on the other hand is
responsible for their Z-coordinates (via its layers).
Adding a component to a JLayeredPane goes like this:
JLayeredPane pane = new JLayeredPane();
pane.setLayout(new StackLayout(...));
pane.add(new CardView(...), new Integer(j));
where new Integer(j) is the layer of the card. This must be an Integer due
to the contract of JLayeredPane.
The problem here is, that my StackLayout cannot have any other constraint
object than an Integer, due to the reason stated above. The LayoutManager
interface requires you to implement the following method:
addLayoutComponent(Component comp, Object constraints);
and the passed Object will here always be an Integer.
In my particular situation, I am lucky, as my XY-coordinates can be
calculated based on the Z-coordinates. For example, the card in layer k
has to be located at Y-coordinate k * offset. So in my situation, the
constraints object being an Integer is not a problem.
I was wondering what you should be doing when there is no correlation
between the Z-coordinates and the XY-coordinates? How can you solve this
then? For example, how would I use a GridBagLayout in combination with a
JLayeredPane, where the first requires a GridBagConstraints object and the
second an Integer object? Of course, a GBL will layout in such a way that
components do not overlap, but it's just the idea.