Pull Out JPanel

I am trying to figure out how to have pop out Jpanel in a Jframe.

I would like to see a small tab exposed in the window and then when the mouse hovers over it a panel slides out with controls on. While the mouse is within this panel and tab the panel stays exposed and then when the mouse moves outside of this it retreats back to its initial position. I can easily do the sliding of the frame via threads etc. its more how do I create the tab and panel (single panel with background image of panel and tab using transparencies???) and how do track if the mouse is within it?