Adding a Scrollable JTextArea (Java)

It doesn't work because you didn't attach the ScrollPane to the JFrame.

Also, you don't need 2 JScrollPanes:

JFrame frame = new JFrame ("Test");
JTextArea textArea = new JTextArea ("Test");

JScrollPane scroll = new JScrollPane (textArea, 
   JScrollPane.VERTICAL_SCROLLBAR_ALWAYS, JScrollPane.HORIZONTAL_SCROLLBAR_ALWAYS);

frame.add(scroll);
frame.setVisible (true);

1. Open design view
2. Right click to textArea
3. open surround with option
4. select "...JScrollPane".

A scroll pane is a container which contains another component. You can't add your text area to two different scroll panes. The scroll pane takes care of the horizontal and vertical scroll bars.

And if you never add the scroll pane to the frame, it will never be visible.

Read the swing tutorial about scroll panes.

You don't need two JScrollPanes.

Example:

JTextArea ta = new JTextArea();
JScrollPane sp = new JScrollPane(ta);  

// Add the scroll pane into the content pane
JFrame f = new JFrame();
f.getContentPane().add(sp);