How to add a text area in a Content pane..?

Question

Hi,
I created a content pane with 5 buttons. One of them is a quit button, and I was able to create an "system.exit(0)" event handling for him. My problem is.. I have 4 other buttons, and I want them to show some text when I click them. How do I add a text area bellow my content pane..?
Copy/paste my code to see what im talking about :) :
import java.awt.*;
import java.awt.event.*;
import javax.swing.*;
public class Interface extends JFrame {
public Interface() {
Container contentPane = getContentPane();
contentPane.setLayout(new FlowLayout());
JButton button1 = new JButton("Test1");
JButton button2 = new JButton("Test2");
JButton button3 = new JButton("Test3");
JButton button4 = new JButton("Test4");
JButton button5 = new JButton("Quit");
ButtonHandler handler = new ButtonHandler();
button5.addActionListener( handler );
contentPane.add(button1);
contentPane.add(button2);
contentPane.add(button3);
contentPane.add(button4);
contentPane.add(button5);
contentPane.setBackground(Color.orange);
addWindowListener(new WindowAdapter() {
public void windowClosing(WindowEvent e) {
System.exit(0);
public static void main(String args[]) {
Interface window = new Interface();
window.setLocation(250,350);
window.setTitle("FlowLayout");
window.pack();
window.setTitle("Test");
window.setVisible(true);
public class ButtonHandler implements ActionListener {
public void actionPerformed( ActionEvent e )
System.exit(0);
Thanks alot! :)

Answer 1

By default the content pane of the JFrame uses a Border Layout. So you should:
1) Create a JPanel
2) Set the layout of the JPanel to FlowLayout
3) add the buttons to the panel
4) add the panel to the content pane
5) add your text area to the content pane
Read this section from the Swing tutorial on "Using Layout Managers":
http://java.sun.com/docs/books/tutorial/uiswing/layout/using.html