The CardLayout manager displays only one Component at a time. Each Component ("card") fills the display area of the entire Container. The cards are referred to by a programmer-defined string that is stored in a HashTable by CardLayout. Cards may be “brought to the front” by calling method show with the string for the card’s name or by calling method next repeatedly.

Corrsponding source code:

import java.awt.*;
import java.applet.Applet;
public class CardLayoutTest extends Applet {
    CardLayout layout;
    public void init() {
        layout = new CardLayout();
        setLayout(layout);
        add("intro", new Label("Click the mouse to flip cards"));
        add("Bob", new Label("A description of Bob"));
        add("Jane", new Label("A description of Jane"));
        layout.show(this, "intro"); // show first card
    }
    // upon any keyDown, switch "cards"
    public boolean mouseDown(Event e, int x, int y) {
        // show a card with 'this' as the enclosing container.
        layout.next(this);
        return true;
    }
}