What's so special about CardLayout vs manual adding/removal of JPanels?

Question

There have been many times on StackOverflow where a user asks a question like this...

I have a main JPanel that contains a child JP

Answer 1

• With CardLayout, it's easier to have loose coupling (though not impossible with roll your own)
• With CardLayout, the preferredSize of the card-holder is that of the largest card it holds.
• CardLayout is harder to fark-up, and allows almost trivial contiguous component swapping its next() and prev() methods.
• You can easily associate the desired component with a constant -- no need to have to create a Map<String, Component> for this purpose as it's already there for you. I've not infrequently used enums for this.
• No need to remember to call repaint() and revalidate() when swapping components.
• It's built for and allows for easy re-use of components.

I can't explain the reason for a down-vote though, unless they're upset you didn't mention the need to remember to call repaint() and revalidate() when swapping components. You'll have to ask the down-voter if they are brave enough to respond.

Answer 2

CardLayout has been thoroughly tested and proven to work. It correctly acquires the component-tree lock and performs component validation in order to ensure that nothing can go wrong. Your solution, while it may work most of the time, will fail under certain circumstances.

This all boils to reinventing the wheel: Why would you want to when such a time-tested class is already available?