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

You should do .setVisible(false); to the panel which you want to be replaced.

Here is a working example, it switches the panels when you press "ENTER"; If you copy this in an IDE, automatically get the imports (shift+o in Eclipse);

public class MyFrame extends JFrame implements KeyListener {

    private JButton button = new JButton("Change Panels");
    private JPanel panelOnFrame = new JPanel();
    private JPanel panel1 = new JPanel();

    public MyFrame() {
        // adding labels to panels, to distinguish them
        panelOnFrame.add(new JLabel("panel on frame"));
        panel1.add(new JLabel("panel 1"));      

        setSize(new Dimension(250,250));
        setDefaultCloseOperation(EXIT_ON_CLOSE);
        add(button);
        add(panelOnFrame);
        setVisible(true);
        addKeyListener(this);

        addKeyListener(this);
        setFocusable(true);
    }

    public static void main(String[] args) {
        MyFrame frame = new MyFrame();
    }

    @Override
    public void keyPressed(KeyEvent k) {
        if(k.getKeyCode() == KeyEvent.VK_ENTER){

//+-------------here is the replacement:

            panelOnFrame.setVisible(false);
            this.add(panel1);
        }
    }

    @Override
    public void keyReleased(KeyEvent arg0) {
    }

    @Override
    public void keyTyped(KeyEvent arg0) {
    }
}