Using tabs and the like.

Question

The information on the Sun website wasn't too helpful when dealing with a tabbed pane. Maybe I can get the solution I want here.
First of all, how would you deal with making use of the JTabbedPane class and the tabs you want to use in them? In short, how do you make each tab do its function on click? Second, what is the best method of changing the objects within the GUi frame using the tabs?
Using a GUI builder(either NetBeans, Eclipse's own, or Jigloo), I assumed the best action was to construct panels before hand in seperate classes, and have the individually created panels imported and called within the frame on initialization or on the click of a tab. As much as I'd like to think that is it, there could be an easier way I don't know of. Or I could be taking the wrong approach altogether.

Answer 1

A tabbed pane is a container that displays only one child component at a time. Typically, the children are themselves containers of other components. Each child is associated with a visible tab on the tabbed pane. The user can choose a child to display by selecting the tab associated with that child.
    // Create a child container which is to be associated with a tab
    JPanel panel = new JPanel();
    // Add components to the panel...
    // Specify on which edge the tabs should appear
    int location = JTabbedPane.TOP; // or BOTTOM, LEFT, RIGHT
    // Create the tabbed pane
    JTabbedPane pane = new JTabbedPane();
    // Add a tab
    String label = "Tab Label";
    pane.addTab(label, panel);
    // Create a tabbed pane
    JTabbedPane pane = new JTabbedPane();
    // Add a tab with a label taken from the name of the component
    component1.setName("Tab Label");
    pane.add(component1);
    // Add a tab with a label at the end of all tabs
    String label = "Tab Label";
    pane.addTab(label, component2);
    // Add a tab with a label and icon at the end of all tabs
    Icon icon = new ImageIcon("icon.gif");
    pane.addTab(label, icon, component3);
    // Add a tab with a label, icon, and tool tip at the end of all tabs
    String tooltip = "Tool Tip Text";
    pane.addTab(label, icon, component4, tooltip);
    // Insert a tab after the first tab
    int index = 1;
    pane.insertTab(label, icon, component5, tooltip, index);
//A tabbed pane fires a change event whenever the selected tab is changed either by the user or programmatically.
    // Register a change listener
    pane.addChangeListener(new ChangeListener() {
        // This method is called whenever the selected tab changes
        public void stateChanged(ChangeEvent evt) {
            JTabbedPane pane = (JTabbedPane)evt.getSource();
            // Get current tab
            int sel = pane.getSelectedIndex();
    });