Several Jpanels in a JFrame

Question

Hi,
I have three buttons in Jtoolbar and a JPanel inside a JFrame. Now my program is supposed to work in the follwoing way-
when I click a button a new JPanel containing general information comes in that fixed Jpanel place in that JFrame.
When I press another button "a form" should come.
When I press the third button then the a Jtable will come.
Now all these should come in the same place inside that JFrame. So, when I press the JToggleButtons then how to call and set up so that the Jpanels replace each other?
Please post some example if possible along with your advice.
Thanks a lot in advance.

Answer 1

I figured what the heck, here's a trivial example of card layout:
import java.awt.BorderLayout;
import java.awt.CardLayout;
import java.awt.Font;
import java.awt.event.ActionEvent;
import java.awt.event.ActionListener;
import javax.swing.BorderFactory;
import javax.swing.JButton;
import javax.swing.JLabel;
import javax.swing.JPanel;
* main jpanel that is added to a jframe's contentPane
* this main panel uses a borderlayout and places a label
* in the north position, a swap button in the south
* position, and a jpanel in the center position that uses
* the cardlayout. 
* @author Pete
public class CardPracticeMainPanel extends JPanel
    private static final long serialVersionUID = 1L;
    private JButton swapButton = new JButton("Swap Panels");
    private CardLayout cardlayout = new CardLayout();
    private JPanel cardLayoutPanel = null;
    public CardPracticeMainPanel()
        int ebGap = 20;
        setBorder(BorderFactory.createEmptyBorder(ebGap, ebGap, ebGap, ebGap));
        setLayout(new BorderLayout());
        cardLayoutPanel = createCardLayoutPanel();
        add(createNorthPanel(), BorderLayout.NORTH);
        add(cardLayoutPanel, BorderLayout.CENTER);
        add(createSouthPanel(), BorderLayout.SOUTH);
    public void addCard(JPanel panel, String string)
        cardLayoutPanel.add(panel, string);
    private JPanel createNorthPanel()
        JPanel p = new JPanel();
        JLabel titleLabel = new JLabel("CardLayout Practice Program");
        titleLabel.setFont(new Font(Font.DIALOG, Font.BOLD, 24));
        p.add(titleLabel);
        return p;
    private JPanel createCardLayoutPanel()
        JPanel p = new JPanel();
        p.setLayout(cardlayout);
        return p;
    private JPanel createSouthPanel()
        JPanel p = new JPanel();
        p.add(swapButton);
        swapButton.addActionListener(new SwapButtonListener());
        return p;
    private class SwapButtonListener implements ActionListener
        public void actionPerformed(ActionEvent arg0)
            cardlayout.next(cardLayoutPanel);
import java.awt.Color;
import java.awt.Dimension;
import java.awt.EventQueue;
import javax.swing.BorderFactory;
import javax.swing.JFrame;
import javax.swing.JLabel;
import javax.swing.JPanel;
* the "driver" program that creates a JFrame and places a
* CardPracticeMainPanel into the contentpane of this jframe.
* It also adds JPanel "cards" to the CardPracticeMainPanel object.
* @author Pete
public class CardPracticeTest
    private static Random rand = new Random();
    private static void createAndShowGUI()
        // create the main panel and add JPanel "cards" to it
        CardPracticeMainPanel mainPanel = new CardPracticeMainPanel();
        for (int i = 0; i < 4; i++)
            JPanel card = new JPanel();
            card.setPreferredSize(new Dimension(600, 400));
            card.setBorder(BorderFactory.createLineBorder(Color.blue));
            String panelString = "panel " + String.valueOf(i + 1);
            card.add(new JLabel(panelString));
            mainPanel.addCard(card, panelString);
            card.setBackground(new Color(
                    127 * rand.nextInt(3),
                    127 * rand.nextInt(3),
                    127 * rand.nextInt(3)));
        JFrame frame = new JFrame("CardLayout Practice Application");
        frame.getContentPane().add(mainPanel); // add main to jframe
        frame.setDefaultCloseOperation(JFrame.EXIT_ON_CLOSE);
        frame.pack();
        frame.setLocationRelativeTo(null);
        frame.setVisible(true);
    // let's show the jframe in a thread-safe manner
    public static void main(String[] args)
        EventQueue.invokeLater(new Runnable()
            public void run()
                createAndShowGUI();
}