Making a JPanel transparent

Question

In the application I am writing I want to allow for some popups on my interface. I am using a JLayeredPane, with two JPanels. The main JPanel, on the default layer, holds all the main components. A second JPanel, at the popup layer, will hold any components which should "pop up".
The layered pane is using a border layout, with both JPanels in the Center.
Unfortunately the bottom panel cannot be seen. It is covered by the top panel, even after I called setOpague(false) on the top panel.
Am I taking the wrong approach? Or is it just not possible to make a JPanel transparent?

Answer 1

It should work.I have fiddled around, but have been unable to get this to work. It seems obvious that I'm doing something wrong. :( Below is an example which mimicks my real code, and hopefully is simple enough.
I appreciate any help you can provide.
import java.awt.BorderLayout;
import javax.swing.JButton;
import javax.swing.JFrame;
import javax.swing.JLabel;
import javax.swing.JLayeredPane;
import javax.swing.JList;
import javax.swing.JPanel;
import javax.swing.JScrollPane;
public class MyPanel extends JPanel
     public MyPanel()
          setLayout(new BorderLayout());
          add(createLayeredPane(), BorderLayout.CENTER);
     private JLayeredPane createLayeredPane()
          JPanel mainPanel = createMainPanel();
          JPanel popupPanel = createPopupPanel();
          JLayeredPane pane = new JLayeredPane();
          pane.setLayout(new BorderLayout());
          pane.add(mainPanel, BorderLayout.CENTER);
          pane.add(popupPanel, BorderLayout.CENTER);
          pane.setLayer(mainPanel, JLayeredPane.DEFAULT_LAYER.intValue());
          pane.setLayer(popupPanel, JLayeredPane.POPUP_LAYER.intValue());
          return pane;
     private JPanel createMainPanel()
          JList list = new JList(new Object[]{"One","Two","Three"});
          JButton button = new JButton("Do Nothing");
          JPanel panel = new JPanel();
          panel.setLayout(new BorderLayout());
          panel.add(new JScrollPane(list), BorderLayout.CENTER);
          panel.add(button, BorderLayout.SOUTH);
          return panel;
     private JPanel createPopupPanel()
          JLabel label = new JLabel("Hello world!");
          label.setOpaque(false);
          JPanel panel = new JPanel();
          panel.setOpaque(false);
          panel.add(label);
          return panel;
     public static void main(String[] args)
          MyPanel panel = new MyPanel();
          JFrame mainFrame = new JFrame("Testing");
          mainFrame.setContentPane(panel);
          mainFrame.pack();
          mainFrame.setDefaultCloseOperation(JFrame.EXIT_ON_CLOSE);
          mainFrame.show();
}