Changing a Foreground color:

After a little research, I found how to change the foreground color in a JLabel and therefore in the content pane of the kinds of applications we are writing. (Thanks Stephen)

You need to set the Opaqity or opaqueness of the label to change the forground. Note lines 13, 29 and 30 below:

 1 // RedText

 2    import java.awt.*;

 3    import javax.swing.*;

 4

 5     public class RedText extends JFrame

 6    {

 7       private JLabel aLabel;    // JLabel that displays text

 8  

 9    // no-argument constructor

10        public RedText()

11       {

12       // get content pane and set layout to null

13          Container contentPane = getContentPane();

14          contentPane.setBackground( Color.LIGHT_GRAY );      

15          contentPane.setLayout( null );

16    

17         // set properties of application's window

18          setTitle( "REDText Demo" ); // set title bar string

19          setSize( 608, 143 );   // set width and height of JFrame

20          setVisible( true );    // display JFrame on screen

21    

22       // set up aLabel

23          aLabel = new JLabel();

24          aLabel.setText( "I am red text on light gray!!" );

25          aLabel.setLocation( 30, 0 );

26          aLabel.setSize( 550, 88 );

27          aLabel.setFont( new Font( "Serif", Font.PLAIN, 36 ) );

28          aLabel.setHorizontalAlignment( JLabel.CENTER );

29          aLabel.setOpaque(false);

30          aLabel.setForeground(Color.RED);

31          contentPane.add( aLabel );

32       }

33    

34    // main method

35    public static void main( String[] args )

36     {

37       RedText application = new RedText();

38       application.setDefaultCloseOperation( JFrame.EXIT_ON_CLOSE );

39    

40     } // end method main

41 

42    } // end class RedText