🚀 go-pugleaf

Can anyone help, please.
This is my first Java project and as expected I'm having one or two
problems (four actually!).

Q1.
First the classic panel-setVisible problem.  I have followed Greg
Hamer's directions to others on controlling the Visible of different
panels from button clicks.  This works fine in XYLayout mode, but
ideally I would like my final application to be set in BoarderLayout
mode.  The Panels fail to show in this mode.

Q2.
Will there be any incompatibility with any of Jbuilder's components when
running the application on a Sun Solaris i.e. DBGrid?  Is there anything
that's going to pop up and byte me up the bum?

Q3.
The final application needs to work ideally on any Java allowed
platform.  I am concerned about using JDBC to connect to an Oracle 7.3
database.  This database could be on any allowed platform.  I was
advised to use the JDBC-ODBC bridging, but looking into this, do I need
to include the JDBCODBC.DLL?  This can't be used on anything but
Windows.  Should I be going down the Type 4 JDBC connection route?  If
so, should I be using Oracle's JDBCThin, Type 4 drivers.  Can anyone see
any problems - am I straying down another daft route?  I'm sure that
there are other programmers that have experienced this problem. Please
help.

Q4.
I tried to show a new frame when clicking on a button, using the same
showModal idea's used in Delphi programming.  I found that you couldn't
setModal on a frame.  Am I being daft?  Do I need to set it's focus.  If
so, this will still allow control of the parent frame.  Is there anyway
around this - do I need to use a dialog?

Simple four or five line examples would be great, but anything to help
me is still cool!

TA very much!!!