Thread: JButtons not showing

I have googled this issue and apparently it is common, but I'm not sure how to fix it in my case... I think it has something to do with mixing Swing and Awt libraries... Anyway, I am trying to create a menu for a game and at the moment its just a black screen with a title and I am trying to show a 'start game' button. The button shows up only when I resize the window and hover over the area where it should be. Does anyone know how I can fix this???? Here is my code...

    public void menu(final MazeTeeter mazeteeter){
		Graphics g = canvas.getOffscreenGraphics();
		g.setColor(Color.BLACK);
		g.fillRect(0, 0, xcanvas, ycanvas);
		g.setColor(Color.WHITE);
		g.setFont(new Font("SANS_SERIF", Font.ITALIC,100));
		g.drawString("MazeTeeter", xcanvas/2 - 300, 200);
		canvas.drawOffscreen();
 
		class AddStartButtonListener implements ActionListener
		{ public void actionPerformed(ActionEvent event){mazeteeter.runGame();}}
 
		button = new JButton("Start Game");
		ActionListener buttonListen = new AddStartButtonListener();
		button.addActionListener(buttonListen);
 
		panel = new JPanel();
		panel.add(button);
		panel.setBounds(xcanvas/2, ycanvas/2, 250, 100);
		jframe.add(panel);
 
	}

Not only does the button not show up until hovering over it, but the 'setBounds' method does nothing to the panel. It remains in its original position.... Any ideas?