What is the proper way to swap out an existing JPanel in a JFrame with another?

Question

I\'m building a program that requires swapping out the current, visible JPanel with another. Unfortunately there seems to be multiple to go about this and all of my attempts

Answer 1

I have a Swing app which 'swaps' Panels when the user press the 'SPACE' key, showing a live plot of a running simulation. What i did goes like this:

public class MainPanel extends JPanel implements Runnable {

    // Called when the JPanel is added to the JFrame
    public void addNotify() {

        super.addNotify();
        animator = new ScheduledThreadPoolExecutor(1);
        animator.scheduleAtFixedRate(this, 0, 1000L/60L, TimeUnit.MILLISECONDS);
    }

    public void paintComponent(Graphics g) {

        super.paintComponent(g);

        if (spacePressed) 
            plot.render(g);
        else
            simulation.render(g);
    }

    public void run() {

        simulation.update(); 
        repaint();
    }
}

public class PlotView {

    public void render(Graphics g) {
         //draw the plot here
    }
}

public class SimulationView {

    public void render(Graphics g) {
         //draw simulation here
    }
}

This works very well for my 'show live plot' problem. And there's also the CardLayout approach, which you may turn into a new separate question if you having trouble. Good luck!