Gui using nested panels???

Question

hello all i am trying to do a gui and i have been building it in pieces using panels . However once i get to the point of adding the panels to the frame they have already been nested several times. My problem is now accessing the things in the panels like the textfrields and the buttons to set and get text and eventhandlers. Is this a bad way to go about doing Swing design? Should i just layout everyting onto one panel.? what is considered good practice in gui design using swing?

Answer 1

Hi All,
I ve just started hacking the Swing library, and I am facing the same problem, and to make more clear, here is my scenario:
public class PaperEntry extends JFrame {
     public static Paper paper;
     Publisher publisher;
     JLabel titleLabel, dateLabel, conference_nameLabel;
     JTextField titleField, dateField, conference_nameField, authorNameField,
               autherAddressField, publisherNameField, publisherAddressField;
     TextArea displayArea;
     JButton addAuthorButton, addPublisherButton, showPaperButton, exitButton;
     public PaperEntry() {
          super("Paper Information");
          paper = new Paper();
          Container c = getContentPane();
     public void displayPaper() {
          displayArea.setText(paper.toString());
     public static void main(String[] args) {
          PaperEntry p = new PaperEntry();
          p.setSize(420, 450);
          p.show();
     private class ActionEventHandler implements ActionListener {
          public void actionPerformed(ActionEvent e) {
               if(e.getSource() == exitButton)
                    System.exit(0);
               else if(e.getSource() == addAuthorButton) {
                    AuthorEntry ae = new AuthorEntry();
                    ae.show();
THE PROBLEM...
// Author Entry is almost of the same structure as PaperEntry and I want to stop PaperEntry from
// proceeding until I exit out from the AuthorEntry with the an object Author to be added to the Paper
// object
               else if(e.getSource() == addPublisherButton) {
                    PublisherEntry pe = new PublisherEntry();
                    pe.show();                    
               else if(e.getSource() == showPaperButton) {
               paper.setTitle(titleField.getText());
               paper.setConference_name(conference_nameField.getText());
               paper.setDate(dateField.getText());
               //System.out.println(paper.toString());
               displayPaper();
public class AuthorEntry extends JFrame {
// author info entering frame
public class PublisherEntry extends JFrame {
// publisher info entering frame
I am looking for any solutions....
cu
modber