AFAIK RMI-based applications enables you to create virtually transparent, distributed services and applications...
With the JTabbedPane class, you can achieve this, If you want similar functionality without the tab interface, you can use a card layout instead of a tabbed pane.
Code:
JTabbedPane tabbedPane = new JTabbedPane();
ImageIcon icon = createImageIcon("image.gif");
JComponent panel1 = makeTextPanel("Panel #1");
tabbedPane.addTab("Tab 1", icon, panel1,
"Does nothing");
tabbedPane.setMnemonicAt(0, KeyEvent.VK_1); above code help you implementing tabbedpane..
To switch to a specific tab, the user clicks it with the mouse or just press Alt-1.
here in the above code setMnemonicAt(0, KeyEvent.VK_1)
makes '1' the mnemonic for the respective tab hence by pressing Alt-1 makes the tab's component appear.apply the above code in ur application and set this for appearing new window (requirement for your application)...hope this would help you ....
To switch to a specific tab programmatically, use the setSelectedIndex or the setSelectedComponent methods.