It's in JFrame class (that's a javax.swing class)- in JFrames, you have to add things to the ContentPane rather than directly to the JFrame so you use this method to get the ContentPane associated with a JFrame. Kathy
You also have to use getContentPane to add components to a JApplet, JInternalFrame, and JWindow. I may have missed some, but these three use getContentPane for sure.