Hi charlie ,
I m stuck with same problem as well in one project.
I haven't tried it but i think it will gonna work and we can show almost the same GUI in jdk1.1.
For that just put divide a panel in 4 different panels and draw images on them. (Images should be of TAB-OFF format). listen to the click event.
On click just call the paint for all panels and replace the image with the TAB-ON image.
I hope u will get this.
There is something too in
java Imaging as well .. for this.
do check it as well ..
Regards
Khurram Fakhar