The trick here is that they say it will ALWAYS be empty. You can set the text of the textfield so it won't always be empty, it will just initially be empty.
By the way, Jay S is not a name that comforms to our naming conventions here at the ranch. Please re-register with a more appropriate name. Take a look at this page,
www.javaranch.com/name.jsp for more info.
Thanks,
Bill