With regards to my first question, a panel within a panel with a single button was maybe an oversimplified example of what I am trying to do. The real example is a panel that has three panels added. One of which will have about 7 buttons in one column. What I would like to do is align the panel to the top of the parent panel.
Unless I misunderstand what you're doing you shouldn't be using FlowLayout, it just puts the components in a single row, adding rows as needed. BorderLayout is probably the simplest LayoutManager to use for aligning the panel to the top of the parent panel, you can find out how to use it and other LayoutManagers in this
tutorial. The visual guide to LayoutManagers will probably help you pick one.
One more question, is it possible to have a JButton with 2 lines of text?
If so can we have 1 line bold and the other in a smaller font?
This
tutorial will show you how to do it using HTML.