Now that Tiger is an official release, it’s time to explore even more exciting differences between the 1.4 version of the Java 2 Standard Edition platform and 5.0 of the Java 2 Development Kit. In this installment of Taming Tiger, UI expert John Zukowski explores the newly available Ocean and Synth look and feels. Now, even non-programmers can develop custom look and feels without writing code or having the benefit of a good eye!
An Ocean and Synth look at JDK 5.0
About The Author
Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
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Woah, you can actually change colors of themes when using Java2?
That’s really a great innovation, go Sun!
Read this (http://www.clientjava.com/resources/redirect.action?id=510) article instead – it points out the strength of Synth L&F much better:
“By simply changing the XML file, and without recompiling your program, you change the look produced by the program.”
..
“And that is the power of the Synth look and feel. It allows you to change the look produced by the program without reprogramming.”
Got it?
Well, I stand corrected.
Especially the following url (linked at the bottom of the page from your link) shows it’s quite nice:
http://java.sun.com/developer/JDCTechTips/2004/tt1019.html#2
I just don’t understand why people brag about skinnability when all they actually talk about (in the concerning article) is how you can change colors and font styles, though.
Man, the theme is ugly, maybe not as bad as Metal, but still… Then again it has to be 100% size compatible with Metal to be a plug-in for all old Java stuff…
Maybe it’s time for someone to write a platform-independent OpenStep port for Java?
I think this is fantastic! Not only is it considerably and noticeably faster than previous versions of Swing, it’s far better looking and now quite simple to customize.
Swing is just cool…really.
Even better is the fact that you can set your apps to use the default L&F for whatever platform you’re running the application on.
GTK apps look GTK, Windows apps look native, etc.
Awesome!
What are good (= not dog slow + not butt ugly) cross platform themes nowadays?
I remember some time ago there was a Themed L&F that could emulate XP, Aqua etc on any platform.
And again there was a java app which looked gorgeous. It used a theme called Alloy or seomething like that.
What do you use/recommend today?
http://napkinlaf.sourceforge.net/
Thats a really interesting take! Thanks for the link.