How can I reuse my JFrame to show several GUIs one after the other, instead of creating a new JFrame for each?

I have developed my Java code in Netbeans, and now I want to develop the GUI for my application.

The application communicates with a server, so it's going to have a login frame for sure. After that 开发者_运维技巧there will be a main frame. From the main frame the user can choose where to go and as you can understand there will be a lot of frames.

I have already developed a version of the application where there are a lot of frames and using the "setVisible()", but I want something better looking. I want a stable frame and inside it, changing the panels or something similar.

How would I do this?

You might use JInternalFrames if you like them, or simply use a main panel with a CardLayout, and display the appropriate card depending on the clicked menu item, or the selected JTree node (as it's done in Windows Explorer and similar applications).

Use the Swing tutorial to get you started.

You can, at any time, make any Container object a JFrame's ContentPane. You can also add and remove Containers from any other Container. If you want a user to be able to jump to any of a dozen panels at any time, CardLayout, as suggested in another answer, is easily the best route. If, however, you intend to lead the user along a somewhat controlled path, you can start with a login JPanel. When that's done, you can create the next panel (a JPanel or something else), add it, and dispose of the first one. And so on until the user exits.

If the transition from one panel to another affects nothing else in the program besides the two panels and the parent Container (JFrame or descendant), this is probably the way to go. If a bunch of other places in the program need to know about the change, you'll want a more centralized mechanism, maybe using CardLayout.