changing GUI

[timmin]

 public void incometaxcreator()
       {
       JFrame incometaxframe = new JFrame("income tax generator");
       JButton createincometax = new JButton("generate a list");
       JTextArea outputbox = new JTextArea();
       JTextArea inoutbox = new JTextArea();
 
 
      incometaxframe.add(createincometax, BorderLayout.EAST);
      incometaxframe.add(outputbox, BorderLayout.WEST);
      incometaxframe.add(inoutbox, BorderLayout.CENTER);
 
      outputbox.setPreferredSize(new Dimension (500,200));
      incometaxframe.setVisible(true);
      incometaxframe.setDefaultCloseOperation(incometaxframe.EXIT_ON_CLOSE);
      incometaxframe.setPreferredSize(new Dimension (1000,400));
      incometaxframe.pack();
 
 
 
//create the listener that generates the list
createincometax.addActionListener(new ActionListener( ) {
 
            public void actionPerformed(ActionEvent e)
            {
                //get the information from the textarea and store as a string
                String input= inoutbox.getText();
                String output= input;
                 //create the patterns and matchers
 
                Pattern student = Pattern.compile("cat");
 
                Matcher studentmatcher = student.matcher(output);
 
 
 
 
               output =studentmatcher.replaceAll(Current.getStudentName());
 
                 outputbox.setText(output);

the problem is that it won't allow me to setText to the output box because this is in a different method how do i get around this?

[newbie]

Instead of making the JTextArea entirely inside a method, declare say "private JTextArea outputbox;" and then initialise it afterwards.
Currently the scope of output box is local to incometaxcreator()

[timmin]

well netbeans is giving me a green light but i don't see anything but that could be for plenty of reasons
thanks