JTextArea Formatting Questions

Question

How can I add a Scroll Bar to the JTextArea in the following code, I have tried adding it, as one can see below, however no matter what I seem to change, the scroll bar does not appear. If anyone could help me I'd grealtly appreciate it.
public class CardLayoutDemo extends JTextArea implements ItemListener {
JPanel cards; //a panel that uses CardLayout
final static String BUTTONPANEL = "JPanel with JButtons";
final static String TEXTPANEL = "JPanel with JTextField";
public void addComponentToPane(Container pane) {
//Put the JComboBox in a JPanel to get a nicer look.
JPanel comboBoxPane = new JPanel(); //use FlowLayout
String comboBoxItems[] = { BUTTONPANEL, TEXTPANEL };
JComboBox cb = new JComboBox(comboBoxItems);
cb.setEditable(false);
cb.addItemListener(this);
comboBoxPane.add(cb);
//Create the "cards".
JPanel card1 = new JPanel();
card1.add(new JButton("Button 1"));
card1.add(new JButton("Button 2"));
card1.add(new JButton("Button 3"));
JPanel card2 = new JPanel();
String text = "This is just jibberish to see whether the scroll function will work, \n"+
     "This is just jibberish to see whether the scroll function will work, \n"+
     "This is just jibberish to see whether the scroll function will work, \n"+
"This is just jibberish to see whether the scroll function will work, \n"+
     "This is just jibberish to see whether the scroll function will work, \n"+
     "This is just jibberish to see whether the scroll function will work, \n";
JTextArea textArea = new JTextArea (text);
JScrollPane scrollPane = new JScrollPane(textArea);
add(scrollPane);
card2.add(textArea);
//Create the panel that contains the "cards".
cards = new JPanel(new CardLayout());
cards.add(card1, BUTTONPANEL);
cards.add(card2, TEXTPANEL);
pane.add(comboBoxPane, BorderLayout.PAGE_START);
pane.add(cards, BorderLayout.CENTER);
public void itemStateChanged(ItemEvent evt) {
CardLayout cl = (CardLayout)(cards.getLayout());
cl.show(cards, (String)evt.getItem());
* Create the GUI and show it. For thread safety,
* this method should be invoked from the
* event-dispatching thread.
private static void createAndShowGUI() {
//Make sure we have nice window decorations.
JFrame.setDefaultLookAndFeelDecorated(true);
//Create and set up the window.
JFrame frame = new JFrame("CardLayoutDemo");
frame.setDefaultCloseOperation(JFrame.EXIT_ON_CLOSE);
//Create and set up the content pane.
CardLayoutDemo demo = new CardLayoutDemo();
demo.addComponentToPane(frame.getContentPane());
//Display the window.
frame.pack();
frame.setVisible(true);
public static void main(String[] args) {
//Schedule a job for the event-dispatching thread:
//creating and showing this application's GUI.
javax.swing.SwingUtilities.invokeLater(new Runnable() {
public void run() {
createAndShowGUI();

Answer 1

JScrollPane scrollPane = new JScrollPane(textArea);
add(scrollPane);
card2.add(textArea);This is messed up. I think you wanted to add the text-area-in-a-scroll-pane to card2 and not to "this". Try doing that instead:JScrollPane scrollPane = new JScrollPane(textArea);
card2.add(scrollPane);PC²