How to set Jbuttons to a specific place when you have a background in JLabel : code below

Question 1

" i can't get the jlabel to stay at the top and the buttons to stay south(bottom)"

That's because you set the layout the BorderLayout, then immediately set it to FlowLayout. With FlowLayout, your BorderLayout positioning will do nothing.
```
setLayout(new BorderLayout());
setContentPane(new JLabel(new ImageIcon("image.png")));
setLayout(new FlowLayout());
```

Just get rid of the setLayout(new FlowLayout());

Also your constructor is wrong

public Jukebox() {

-Should be- 

public ButtonClass() {

Also you need to set the layout of the JLabel that you set as the content pane. Yout constructor should look like this

public ButtonClass() {
    JLabel background = new JLabel(new ImageIcon("image.png"));
    background.setLayout(new BorderLayout());
    setContentPane(background);
    setTitle("Background with buttons");
    setDefaultCloseOperation(WindowConstants.DO_NOTHING_ON_CLOSE);

    JPanel top = new JPanel();
    top.add(label);
    add(top, BorderLayout.NORTH);
    JPanel bottom = new JPanel();
    bottom.add(b1);
    bottom.add(b2);
    bottom.add(b3);
    bottom.add(b4);
    add(bottom, BorderLayout.SOUTH);
    //pack();
    setVisible(true);
}

Also, add("North", top); is a deprecated method. Instead use add(top, BorderLayout.NORTH) and same for add(bottom, BorderLayout.SOUTH)

Also, Swing apps should be run on the Event Dispatch Thread. You can do so by wrapping the code in your main with a SwingUtilities.invokeLater...

public static void main(String[] args) {
    SwingUtilities.invokeLater(new Runnable() {
        public void run() {
            new ButtonClass();
        }
    });
}

Also, you should set the panel's opaque property to false, if you want the image to show behind them.
```
top.setOpaque(false);
bottom.setOpaque(false);
```

enter image description here

import java.awt.*;
import java.awt.event.*;
import javax.swing.*;

public class ButtonClass extends JFrame
        implements ActionListener {

    JButton b1 = new JButton("button1");
    JButton b2 = new JButton("button2");
    JButton b3 = new JButton("button3");
    JButton b4 = new JButton("button4");
    JLabel label = new JLabel("buttons:");

    public static void main(String[] args) {
        SwingUtilities.invokeLater(new Runnable() {
            public void run() {
                new ButtonClass();
            }
        });
    }

    public ButtonClass() {
        label.setForeground(Color.WHITE);
        JLabel background = new JLabel(new ImageIcon(getClass().getResource("/resources/space.png")));
        background.setLayout(new BorderLayout());
        setContentPane(background);
        setTitle("Background with buttons");
        setDefaultCloseOperation(WindowConstants.DO_NOTHING_ON_CLOSE);

        JPanel top = new JPanel();
        top.setOpaque(false);
        top.add(label);
        add(top, BorderLayout.NORTH);
        JPanel bottom = new JPanel();
        bottom.setOpaque(false);
        bottom.add(b1);
        bottom.add(b2);
        bottom.add(b3);
        bottom.add(b4);
        add(bottom, BorderLayout.SOUTH);
        setSize(400, 300);
        setVisible(true);
    }

    @Override
    public void actionPerformed(ActionEvent e) {}
}

Question 2

Try using:

add(bottom, BorderLayout.SOUTH);

instead of:

add("South", bottom);

BorderLayout tutorial