[CELITE]

jfisher I think I see where you might have run into problems

I'm going to re-paste the code here for brevity:

class ExtendedCustomMainScreen extends CustomMainScreen {
    ExtendedCustomMainScreen() {    
        super();
        RichTextField rtf = new RichTextField( "This is a readonly textfield", Field.READONLY );
        LabelField helloWorld = new LabelField( "Hi jfisher!" );
        add( rtf );
        add( helloWorld );
    }
} 

class CustomMainScreen extends MainScreen {
    
    private VerticalFieldManager _container;
    
    CustomMainScreen() {    
        super( Manager.NO_VERTICAL_SCROLL | Manager.NO_VERTICAL_SCROLLBAR );
        setTitle( "Test" );
        
        VerticalFieldManager internalManager = new VerticalFieldManager( Manager.NO_VERTICAL_SCROLL | Manager.NO_VERTICAL_SCROLLBAR ) {
            public void paintBackground( Graphics g ) {
                g.clear();
                int color = g.getColor();
                g.setColor( 0xc0dce0 );
                g.fillRect( 0, 0, Display.getWidth(), Display.getHeight() );
                g.setColor( color );
            }
            protected void sublayout( int maxWidth, int maxHeight ) {
                Field titleField = getMyTitleField();
                int titleFieldHeight = 0;
                if ( titleField != null ) {
                    titleFieldHeight = titleField.getHeight();
                }
                
                int displayWidth = Display.getWidth();    // I would probably make these global
                int displayHeight = Display.getHeight();
    
                super.sublayout( displayWidth, displayHeight - titleFieldHeight );
                setExtent( displayWidth, displayHeight - titleFieldHeight );
            }
               
        };
        _container = new VerticalFieldManager( Manager.VERTICAL_SCROLL | Manager.VERTICAL_SCROLLBAR );
        internalManager.add( _container );
        super.add( internalManager );
    }
    
    public void add( Field field ) {
        _container.add( field );
    }
    
    private Field getMyTitleField() {
        Manager delegate = getDelegate();
        Field titleField = null;
        try {
            titleField = delegate.getField( 0 );
        }
        catch ( IndexOutOfBoundsException ioobe ) {
            //
        }
        return titleField;
    }
} 

class MainScreenWithBackgroundMain extends UiApplication {
    
    public static void main( String[] args ) {
        MainScreenWithBackgroundMain app = new MainScreenWithBackgroundMain();
        app.enterEventDispatcher();
    }
    
    MainScreenWithBackgroundMain() {    
        ExtendedCustomMainScreen mainScreen = new ExtendedCustomMainScreen();
        pushScreen( mainScreen );
    }
}

I ran a few tests on it and they came out clean. Give her a shot.