Q:

how to access many parameters from the GUI

I am writing a Java application that takes a lot of parameters as input (~100). I am exposing some of the in the GUI, but of course it is impossible to show all of them at once. 
I am curious if there is a shared way to let a user access a large amount of parameters like that. Right now, I have some buttons in the GUI, and each of them opens a JPanel which show a sub-set of the parameters. Is this a common solution? or are there more efficient solution from a human-interface point of view?
Thank you in advance for your advices,
Simone

A:

One way I've found effective is to have a single-selection JTree on the left side of the user interface.  Whenever the user selects a tree node, a corresponding panel is shown on the right.  I typically will place all the panels into a CardLayout to ensure the UI's preferred size accommodates all of them.
This has the advantage of allowing you organize your information hierarchically.

