togglePanel is a base component for all switchable panels in RichFaces. It renders sequence of states that can be switched (toggled) by a behavior called toggleControl. rich:togglePanel has no default appearance. You can define it using the set of child togglePanelItem's with any given content inside.

switchType attribute defines the strategy of switching. The possible values for this attributes are:

- client - switching happens on the client without any request to the server. The jsf form is not required in this mode
- ajax - when states are switched, the content of new states comes from the server in Ajax way.
- server - the whole page is reloaded when states are switched

As the component not provides any predefined layout it could be used for creation of any kind of switchable panels easilly. Here is the sample of simplest tabbed pane organized using that component: