Visibility of Component

Question

I've got a JLabel that I want to be invisible until a user enters the info in a dialog box, then add that info to the label and display it. Could someone give me some direction on what I should be doing? I get an error that says that it can't find the symbols for the label and the frame in the Action Listener, but I'm not really sure how to fix that.
I've got code that looks something like this:
import javax.swing.*;
import java.awt.*;
import java.awt.event.*;
public class Barcoder extends JFrame implements ActionListener {
     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() {
                 createAndShowBarcoder();
     private static void createAndShowBarcoder() {
          //Create the window frame
          //Add various components to the main panels
          //A bunch of panels and components here
          //Barcode Label is initially not visible
          JLabel barcodeLabel = new JLabel("EZ4U");
          barcodeLabel.setFont(new Font("",Font.PLAIN,11));
          barcodeLabel.setBackground(Color.white);
          barcodeLabel.setVisible(false);
          //Indexed Option
               JButton indexButton = new JButton("EZ4U1");
          indexButton.setBackground(Color.white);
          indexButton.setFont(new Font("",Font.PLAIN,12));
          indexButton.addActionListener(this);
          indexButton.setActionCommand("Index");
          //Display the window
     public void actionPerformed(ActionEvent evt) {
           if(evt.getActionCommand()=="Index"){
             //Open Index options dialog
                IndexBarcode indexLabel = new IndexBarcode(this);
             indexLabel.setVisible(true);
               //Get user string and add to Visible label
             String labelText_V = indexLabel.query();
             barcodeLabel.setText(labelText_V);
             barcodeLabel.setVisible(true);
             BarcoderFrame.validate();
             BarcoderFrame.repaint();
}

Answer 1

I've tried a couple of different layouts but I still have the components moving around within the container. Can I stack them on top of each other with the barcodeLabel in the middle of the picture and the rotateButton at the bottom corner. Is this even possible?
Here is the code that I'm talking about:
        /* Objects in Center Panel */
         centerPanel = new JLayeredPane();
         centerPanel.setLayout(new GridBagLayout());
         GridBagConstraints gbc3 = new GridBagConstraints();
         //Plate Graphic
        picture = new JLabel(createImageIcon("images/plate_front.jpg"));
        picture.setPreferredSize(new Dimension(381, 219)); //The preferred size is hard-coded
         //Rotate Button
         JButton rotateButton = new JButton(rotateIcon);
         rotateButton.setMargin(new Insets (0,0,0,0));
          rotateButton.addActionListener(this);
          rotateButton.setActionCommand("rotate");
          //Barcode Label is initially not visible
          barcodeLabel = new JLabel("");
          barcodeLabel.setFont(new Font("",Font.PLAIN,12));
          barcodeLabel.setBackground(Color.white);
          barcodeLabel.setBorder(BorderFactory.createLineBorder(Color.black));
          barcodeLabel.setOpaque(true);
          barcodeLabel.setVisible(false);
          //Add objects to panel(s)
          gbc3.anchor = GridBagConstraints.NORTHWEST;
          gbc3.gridwidth = 1;
          centerPanel.add(picture, gbc3, 0);
          //centerPanel.setComponentZOrder(picture, 0);
          centerPanel.add(barcodeLabel, gbc3, 1);
          //centerPanel.setComponentZOrder(barcodeLabel, 1);
          gbc3.anchor = GridBagConstraints.SOUTHEAST;
          centerPanel.add(rotateButton, gbc3, 2);
          //centerPanel.setComponentZOrder(rotateButton, 2);