so do i extend Component?...
I have made a kinda textfield component before where it paints itself onto the screen in the main rendering method, and it is given some event info each frame, is this the way to go?
First, do you mean JComponent or Component? If your using swing, you should descend from JComponent. As for extending either of the clases, use them if your goal is a completely custom componen. If you just want a semi-custom component, just modify the existing classes in Swing through each class's respective mutator methods, set*(...).