SWING: whats the difference between panels and panes? [resolved]

[Dillinger4]

What is the difference between a panel and a pane? They are both used often, but why is it JTabbedPane and JPanel and not the other wayaround? Any reason?...

JTabbedPane is an actual component. JPanel is a component also but it really offers no additional functionality other then to group components.

Why do you sometimes use .add (eg. JPanel) and sometimes .getContentPane().add (eg. JInternalDialog)?

I used to be confused with this also. And i would often forget to add components to the content pane instead of say a JFrame which causes a compilation error.

.getContentPane().add (eg. JInternalDialog) that you are refering to is a short hand alternative. You can code it like this if you wanted to(as i often do)

JFrame jf = new JFrame("Hello"); 
Container c = jf.getContentPane();
c.add(jc);