So, I'm a total newbie when it comes to Java, having to learn it on the fly here at my job.The short form of my problem is that I'm trying to force a JPanel using a FlowLayout to restrict its size ...

You then set the frame’s content pane to be a JPanel instance, and the given layout to be the panel’s layout manager.

Take another path to filthy rich clients -- AnimatingCardLayout is a free, open source layout manager that you can use to create animated transitions for your Java GUIs.