The first thing that
you should do is to study Sun Swing tutorial as it is the best single way I know of learning how to code Swing. There you will learn good Swing-habits from the get go. There you will learn that JComponents must be placed within a root container of some sort (either directly or indirectly by placing in another JComponent that is in a hierarchy that leads to a root container).
One way to show your class would be to add it to a JFrame like so:
Oops, one last thing. Do you know that there is a Swing forum here where all Swing questions should go. Reason being, you'll have a much better chance of running into a true Swing guru in that forum. Here you'll be stuck with folks like me. So while I'd leave this discussion in this current
thread, if you have future Swing questions, do give the Swing forum a look.
[ November 23, 2008: Message edited by: pete stein ]