Difference between JPanel, JFrame, JComponent, and JApplet

Question

I\'m making a physics simulator for fun and I was looking up graphics tutorials when I tried to figure out the difference between all these J\'s. Can somebody elaborate on them

Answer 1

You might find it useful to lookup the classes on oracle. Eg:

http://download.oracle.com/javase/1.4.2/docs/api/javax/swing/JFrame.html

There you can see that JFrame extends JComponent and JContainer.

JComponent is a a basic object that can be drawn, JContainer extends this so that you can add components to it. JPanel and JFrame both extend JComponent as you can add things to them. JFrame provides a window, whereas JPanel is just a panel that goes inside a window. If that makes sense.