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Can't understand JPanel setBackground method behavior

JPanel.setBackground method does nothing (although opaque attribute is true) if super.paintComponent father method isn't being called.
I have read a lot of similar questions here about this issue, and in each one of them I've only found solutions without explanation that helped me to understand why setBackground method when written before adding the JPanel to JFrame changes the JPanel background color, while when the setBackground is written inside paintComponent nothing is changed (only when calling father's paintComponent method as already mentioned).
Is it somehow related to Graphics object?
I have tried to change JPanel's opaque attribute to true and using setBackground(COLOR.BLACK) in paintComponent() method I had overriden in a class that extends JPanel
paintComponent(Graphics g)
{
this.setOpaque(true);
this.setBackground(COLOR.BLACK);
}
I expect that the JPanel background color will be black
Instead, background color is the default one

Well, first of all if you're using paintComponent(Graphics g) method, the first line you need to have inside is: super.paintComponent(g) otherwise you're breaking the paint-chain.
This will allow the parent component to draw the default component, before any customizations you do to it. If you don't do it, well, is like having a drawing in a piece of paper, imagine a circle, then cutting that circle and then trying to paint the outside.
Here's a more in-depth answer to How does super.paintComponent(g) works
However I wouldn't write
this.setOpaque(true);
this.setBackground(COLOR.BLACK);
inside the paintComponent(...) method, as it gets called several times and you can't control when it will ever get called. I would put those lines in a constructor, unless you want to change it later in your program while it's being painted depending on the state of your program or a gradient maybe.
For this part:
why setBackground method when written before adding the JPanel to JFrame changes the JPanel background color
Honestly, I don't understand what you mean.
Why do you say that if i won't call super.paintComponent(),it will break the chain? It's still drawing all the shapes and lines i want using graphics object.
From the docs:
The JPanel has a UI delegate which performs the background painting for itself. You call it by using super.paintComponent(g) and we pass the Graphics component to prevent irrevocable changes such as Graphics.translate
Your JPanel knows how to paint its children, but requires some help to paint itself, and this help comes from its parent.
When I mentioned "break the paint chain" I didn't mean nothing would paint, but that you would get strange behaviors such as the one of the JPanel's background disappearing or not being set.
In addition,something weird happens if the argument i'm sending to setBackground method is a random color(using Random object). JPanel changing color very quickly although i'm not doing anything(not minimizing,not resizing,etc).Can you consider why?
As I said before, the paintComponent gets called several times and you don't have control over when it will be called, even moving your mouse or something else will trigger the panel to repaint.

java double buffer doesn't erase

I am doing a project with double buffering. When I paint, it simply paints on top of the old layers, but I need to erase them. Repaint() didn't work, but I'm guessing something equally as simple is the answer.
Any ideas?
Added code, and now it disappears, but it erases the background color.
public void paint(Graphics g)
{
super.paint(buffer);
for(Projectile p: projectiles)
drawRectImage(buffer, p.image, p.getRectangle());
}

Suggestions:
If this is a Swing GUI, then don't override the paint method, but instead override the paintComponent method. This won't help your current problem, but will help prevent future problems including problems with painting of borders and child components.
If Swing (again you don't say), then make sure that your painting component extends JPanel, not JComponent, since JPanel is opaque and fills its background rectangle in its super method.
If it's not Swing, then you should strongly consider changing from AWT to Swing.
If you're still stuck, then yep, you'll want to create and post a minimal example program. Please check out the link.

How to add multiple layers onto JPanel

I need some help with Java Swing components and its capabilities. I need to add a JPanel to a JFrame and paint an Ellipse2D on it. Onto the Ellipse2D I want to add another element, in my case it is a picture (right now I use an ImageIcon, maybe wrong). How can I achieve adding the Ellipse2D and the picture on the panel as shown in the image I attached?
The reason why I need the images separated is, because I need to change the filling color of the ellipse sometimes.
Thanks for any help.

What you need is to create a custom JPanel implementation and override paintComponent method.
Inside it, you just do:
public void paintComponent(Graphics g) {
super.paintComponent(g);
// Draw ellipse here
// Draw your image here. It will be drawn on top of the ellipse.
}
This way, you can hold the ellipse fill color in the CustomPanel class, and just call repaint() method after you change the color.

your idea could be very good described (including code example) in the Oracles tutorial How to Decorate Components with the JLayer Class
notice JLayer is available only for Java7, but its based on (for Java6) JXLayer
you can use (I'm using) GlassPane too, with the same / similair output to the Swing GUI
EDIT
quite easy and nice output is by using OverlayLayout, there is possible to overlay J/Component(s) with Graphics e.g., a few examples

take the two images as image icons like
ImageIcon car=new ImageIcon("image path");
ImageIcon elipse=new ImageIcon("image path");
add those two image icons two label
JLabel carLabel=new JLabel(car);
JLabel ellipseLabel=new JLabel(ellipse);
and set the position of ellipse and car
carLabel.setBounds(0,0,50,50);
ellipseLabel.setBounds(10,10,50,50);

How to successfully modify the way a JFrame (and all of its components) paint?

I'm trying to implement a simple window scale in java's swing library. The goal is simply to double the window height and width, and paint the window and each of its components in scale.
Here's an example of the code I'm using:
public class MyWindow extends JFrame {
...
public void paint(Graphics g) {
Graphics2D g2d = (Graphics2D) g;
g2d.scale(2,2);
super.paint(g);
}
}
The position and size for each my components in this window is set manually using setBounds with a null layout for the window.
When I actually run the program, what happens is that the first paint for the window seems successful-- everything is sized appropriately. Each subsequent repaint by the components, however, is neither twice the size, nor in the proper location. Here's what I mean:
As you can see, portions of the screen which have components that call repaint manually (the animating bits), don't seem to be using the Graphics2D scale of the JFrame. I looked in the source code, and tried overloading a few other methods (update and repaint, mostly), but all of them seemed to produce the same result. I further looked at the paint and repaint methods of the component and container classes, but they all seem to call a specified repaint of their parent. Shouldn't my Window be the "biggest" parent? If so, why haven't these repaint calls reached my Window?
My big question to you is, therefore: what repaint methods of the parent component do the child components call? Why aren't the calls properly routed to my JFrame's paint call? Is there any other (better) way that I can scale my window? Any and all help is appreciated!

As discussed in Painting in AWT and Swing: The Paint Methods, "Swing programs should override paintComponent() instead of overriding paint()." A common approach is to create a view by overriding paintComponent() in a JComponent (or subclass), as shown here. Let your view listen for changes to the game's model, as discussed here.
SwingUtilities.updateComponentTreeUI() should be used to change the Look & Feel, not update the view.

Use
javax.swing.SwingUtilities.updateComponentTreeUI(parentComponent);
when you need to make sure all of the parentComponents child component's look and feel are updated properly.

How to make canvas with Swing?

I'm trying to make a paint editor with Java in which I have a toolbar with the objects that I would like to paste in the canvas. I'm using Swing components to make the GUI, but when I looked for the way of making the canvas, I only found the class canvas from AWT.
Is there any way to make something similar to canvas with Swing? (for example, JPanel?) I have read that using the class canvas from AWT with a GUI made with swing won't work correctly, is that true?

In order to make a custom 'Canvas' in swing you usually write a subclass of a JPanel. Then, you must overwrite the protected paintComponent(Graphics g) method of JPanel.
In the paint method, you can call methods on the Graphics object to actually draw on the JPanel.
As always, the Java Tutorials have a great reference on this to get you started.

You'll probably want to make a subclass of JPanel and implement your own way of painting components you want to draw onto the panel.
The basic approach will probably be along the line of assigning a MouseListener to the subclass of JPanel, then implement painting functionality.
The basic idea may be something along the line of:
class MyCanvas extends JPanel implements MouseListener
{
Image img; // Contains the image to draw on MyCanvas
public MyCanvas()
{
// Initialize img here.
this.addMouseListener(this);
}
public void paintComponent(Graphics g)
{
// Draws the image to the canvas
g.drawImage(img, 0, 0, null);
}
public void mouseClicked(MouseEvent e)
{
int x = e.getX();
int y = e.getY();
Graphics g = img.getGraphics();
g.fillOval(x, y, 3, 3);
g.dispose();
}
// ... other MouseListener methods ... //
}
The above example is incomplete (and not tested -- it definitely won't compile), but it gives an idea about how to implement a MyCanvas class in which a user can click on and draw circles.
The img object is used to hold the image of the canvas. The paintComponent method is used to paint the img object to the canvas. In the mouseClicked method, the Graphics object associated with img is retrieved in order to fillOval onto the image.
Since one the requirements is to paste images onto the canvas, it may be a good idea to hold some Images that you want to paste into the canvas. Perhaps something along the line of:
Image[] myImages; // Used to store images to paint to screen.
Then, in the routine to paint the image onto img stored in MyCanvas:
g.drawImage(myImage[INDEX_OF_DESIRED_IMAGE], 0, 0, null);
By using the drawImage method of the Graphics object, other Images can be drawn onto Images.
As for the question on AWT and Swing, yes, it is true that you do not want to mix components from the AWT and Swing, as they differ in the way they render GUI components. AWT is based on heavyweight components, meaning they native windowing for painting the GUI, while Swing is based on lightweight components, meaning the GUI is drawn by Java itself without using native components.
A good guide on the difference of AWT and Swing is provided in Painting in AWT and Swing article from Sun.

Simply subclass JComponent.
JPanel is an inappropriate class. It is often suggested as it appears to have setOpaque(true) invoked on it automatically. It's actually the PL&F which does that, and whether or not it actually happens is implementation and vendor dependent.
Canvas is a heavyweight component. That is to say that it is controlled by the underlying windowing system. The result is that it will typically be drawn over the top of Swing components, without respect to z-order or clipping (putting it in a scroll pane will give odd behaviour).

You might want to look at the Minueto API. It is a very simple to use graphics api, and you can combine the Java event listening with it to provide your drawing capability.
http://minueto.cs.mcgill.ca/