Little advice on JPanels in JFrame

hello javaRanchy's

i need a little pointer about JPanels and if that is even the best way to code...

I have a main GUI JFrame with:

menuBar -> JToolBar -> JPanel 1

what i want is create a seperate .java file for each new panel and then have update the main GUI when the selected panel is selected...

i.e

main.java
panel1.java
panel2.java
panel3.java

then in the main GUI

menuBar -> JToolBar -> JPanel 1
selected option in toolbar to show
menuBar -> JToolBar -> JPanel 2

hope that makes sence

i just want to have multiple JPanels ontop of each other then only set the one that is requested to be visable...

as a tabbed pane will have to many tabs and wont fit on the page...

any info will be a great help

many thanks

peter hammond wrote:i just want to have multiple JPanels ontop of each other then only set the one that is requested to be visable...

That's what CardLayout does.

cool thanks will give it a look wasnt sure what i needed to look at... ta