Ok, Swing components are a bit different than AWT components. A JTextArea and any other Swing component do not have the possibility to scroll.
That's why you have a JScrollPane. This means, if you want a Swing component to be scrollable, you have to wrap it with a JScrollPane.
If you use this code, and your text area doesn't contain any text, then you won't see any scrollbars. You will see it only if the text and with the text the JTextArea is larger, than you can see it. But this behavior is changable.
Just one hint,
you should have a look to the Swing tutorial from Sun to have an overview about what is possible with Swing.
[ August 01, 2002: Message edited by: Rene Liebmann ]