Dropdown Menu bar being hidden by the Textarea

Question

My problem is that the menu bar does show up, but the text area is over the dropdown menu. You can see the drop down menu start but then is hidden under the textarea. I hope that a good enough discription.
The frame is a typical JFrame that contains a BorderLayout. My class TheFrame is an extention of JFrame. In the CenterPanel I have a Text area. In the south panel I have another BorderLayout with a text area as the center and a button for the east panel. The menu is going under the text area in the center panel. This might be a bug with the borderlayout?
public TheFrame(){
super("Com");
getContentPane().setLayout(new BorderLayout());
JMenuBar menuBar = new JMenuBar();
setJMenuBar(menuBar);
menuBar.add(getMyMenuBar());
getContentPane().add(getCenterPanel(), BorderLayout.CENTER);
getContentPane().add(getSouthPanel(), BorderLayout.SOUTH);
pack();
private JMenu getMyMenuBar(){
JMenu menu = new JMenu("File");
menu.add(createConnectItem());
menu.add(new JMenuItem("test"));
return menu;
private JMenuItem createConnectItem(){
JMenuItem connect = new JMenuItem("New");
ActionListener listener = new ConnectMenuItemActionListener(com);
connect.addActionListener(listener);
return connect;
}

Answer 1

I don't see the textarea in the code you posted.
But I know that the described problem comes up when
you use "TextArea" unstead of "JTextArea".
"TextArea" is an awt component and "JTextArea" is
the corresponding swing component. You should not
mix awt and swing components in the same GUI.
However, "TextArea" has the scrolling facility already included.
With "JTextArea" you must use JScrollPane if you need
scrolling.
        JScrollPane scrollpane = new JScrollPane();
        JTextArea textarea = new JTextArea();
        scrollpane.setViewportView(textarea);