How to Draw JPanel's Components without the background?

Question

So I have a "GameCourt" class that extends JPanel. This class overwrites the paintComponent code, so that it paints a few components (a maze, a character and some coins). This JPanel is part of a class extending JLayeredPane with two layers, one to paint the background (using BackgroundPanel class that extends JPanel), and another to paint all the elements I want (A reset button, a label..)

So what I want is the GameCourt that is above the Background in the JLayeredPane to not paint it's background so I can view the beautiful image.

I tried setOpaque(false) in the GameCourt,but then it only displays the background.

I tried setBackground (new Color(0,0,0,0)) but that didn't work. That's because there is another blackBackground behind the GameCourt JPanel I have no idea where it's coming from. I tried super.setBackground, but that did nothing.

I tried changing the index of the background in JLayeredPane to make it above he GameCourt(JPanel), but that doesn't make a difference. (This is weird since it should at least paint the background above the GameCourt JPanel.

Also, I tried doing: add(background, new Integer(0)) like in the sample code in the JavaDocs, but it said "Illegal Argument Exception".

I really don't know what is wrong... I think I misunderstood the JLayeredPane Code because when I use setOpaque(false) but don't add the background to the JLayeredPane, it displays everything correctly. Also, how is changing add(background,0) to add(background,2) not making a difference??

Here is the "GameCourt" code (simplified): the m.draw(g), coins.drawCoins(g), etc.. just draw a bunch of png images.

 public class GameCourt extends JPanel {

 public GameCourt(JLabel status) {

 //     setOpaque(false);    
    setBackground(new Color(0,0,0,0));
 // Game constants
public static final int COURT_WIDTH = 1275;
public static final int COURT_HEIGHT = 765;
}

/**
 * (Re-)set the game to its initial state.
 */
public void reset() {
    playing = true;
    status.setText("Running...");

    // Make sure that this component has the keyboard focus
    requestFocusInWindow();
}

/**
 * This method is called every time the timer defined in the constructor
 * triggers.
 */
private void tick() {
    if (playing) {
        repaint();
    }
}
@Override
public void paintComponent(Graphics g) {
    super.paintComponent(g);
    m.drawMaze(g);
    player.draw(g);
    coins.drawCoins(g);
}

@Override
public Dimension getPreferredSize() {
    return new Dimension(COURT_WIDTH, COURT_HEIGHT);
}
}

Here is the JLayeredPanel code (also slightly simplified):

public class LayeredGameCourt extends JLayeredPane {

package Game;

import java.awt.BorderLayout;
import java.awt.Color;
import java.awt.Dimension;
import java.awt.event.ActionEvent;
import java.awt.event.ActionListener;

import javax.swing.BorderFactory;
import javax.swing.JButton;
import javax.swing.JLabel;
import javax.swing.JLayeredPane;
import javax.swing.JPanel;

@SuppressWarnings("serial")
public class LayeredGameCourt extends JLayeredPane {


    private GameCourt court;
    public LayeredGameCourt()    {

        setPreferredSize(new Dimension(GameCourt.COURT_WIDTH, GameCourt.COURT_HEIGHT+90));
        setLayout(new BorderLayout());

        final JBackgroundPanel background = new JBackgroundPanel();
        add(background,0);
        background.setBounds(0,0,GameCourt.COURT_WIDTH,GameCourt.COURT_HEIGHT+90);

        // Status panel
        final JLabel status = new JLabel("Running...");

        // Main playing area
        final GameCourt court = new GameCourt(status);
        this.court=court;
        add(court, 1);
        court.setBounds(0,90,GameCourt.COURT_WIDTH,GameCourt.COURT_HEIGHT);

        // Reset button
        final JPanel control_panel = new JPanel();
        add(control_panel, 1);


        final JButton reset = new JButton("Reset");
        reset.addActionListener(new ActionListener() {
            public void actionPerformed(ActionEvent e) {
                court.reset();
            }
        });
        control_panel.add(status);
        control_panel.add(reset);
        // Start game
        court.reset();
    }

    public void requestFocusForGC(){
        court.requestFocusInWindow();
    }

    }

And finally, the (useless) backgroundPanel code, if it helps:

@SuppressWarnings("serial")
public class JBackgroundPanel extends JPanel {

    private BufferedImage background;
    public JBackgroundPanel() {
        try {
            if (background == null) {
                background = ImageIO.read(new File("background.png"));
            }
        } catch (IOException e) {
            System.out.println("Internal Error:" + e.getMessage());
        } 
    }

    @Override
    protected void paintComponent(Graphics g) {
        super.paintComponent(g);
        g.drawImage(background, 0, 0,null);  
        System.out.println("attempting to paint");
    }

    @Override
    public Dimension getPreferredSize() {
        return new Dimension(GameCourt.COURT_WIDTH, GameCourt.COURT_HEIGHT+90);
    }
}

Answer 1

Never mind, got it to work!

For other people who might be having the same problem. Here is how my thought process went.

Why can't I do add(Background, new Integer(0))?

Maybe it's because background isn't a component? Nope. Looked over java docs, realized they didn't set the layout type. Maybe my .add calls the the .add for the BorderLayout i added, that's why it fails.

So I removed it and it worked!!!

All I needed to do was to freakin comment out one line that I for some godammn reason decided needed to be there.

But it works!!!!

For clarification: This is the line I removed:

setLayout(new BorderLayout());

Thanks for (if) anyone who was trying to help!