LAF : Java Glossary

Mac L&F

public boolean isSupportedLookAndFeel()
   {
   return isNativeLookAndFeel();
   }

public boolean isSupportedLookAndFeel()
   {
   return true;
   }

Selecting L&F Programmatically

Using the Nimbus look & feel that comes with JDK (Java Development Kit) 1.6.0_10+, is tricky since the class file that implements it might

Selecting L&F On the Command Line

Discovering Installed L&Fs

Discovering Active L&Fs

// discovering the current active Look and Feel
LookAndFeel laf = UIManager.getLookAndFeel();
String lafName = laf.getName();

Decorating

L&F Icons

// Get an icon that looks just like the one the L&F uses
// for closing internal frames.
Icon closeIcon = UIManager.getIcon( "InternalFrame.closeIcon" );

Overriding

// overriding a colour in the L&F
UIManager.put( "TabbedPane.selected", Color.RED );

Another approach is to write your own Look & Feel that extends some other one, and just overrides a few font-defining methods or colour-defining methods. See this sample code for a writing a derived LAF.

Persistence

User Selected

Gotchas

• If you change the L&F dynamically, sometimes parts of your app won’t change. You can find all frames
• If you load your look and feel with a custom class loader, you must use this undocumented hook so that Swing

  // persuade Swing to use your custom class loader to load LAF classes
  UIManager.getDefaults().put( "ClassLoader", loader );

• Nimbus LAF is part of JDK 1.0.6_10+, but it is not the default. It does not use any bit map graphics. It uses scalable 2D graphics and gradients. It has hardware acceleration support. It seems to render JTable columns and JSpinners larger, but the layout managers do not seem to notice. You must manually pad their sizes. Nimbus buttons are ugly, but it does JTables better than other LAFs.
• Motif looks ratty rendered on Windows, as if anti-aliasing had been disabled. The default background for components is too dark making the text hard to read.
• On the Macintosh, you usually use the command clover key ⌘ to copy/paste. With most look and feels, this stops working. You must use the Control key instead. To leave it as native, you need to use the UIManager. getSystemLookAndFeelClassName(). Arggh! would it have been that hard to make both keys work?
• Different LAFs render different sizes. You will need to allocate more real estate for metal and less for CDE/Motif. So view your layout in all the LAFs you plan to support and adjust sizes for equal tempering (a metaphoric reference to Bach’s √12 equal tempered tuning that minimised problems when you switch keys.)

Learning More

Books

	recommend book⇒Java Look and Feel Design Guidelines (2nd Edition)
	by:	Sun Microsystems	978-0-201-72588-9	paperback
		(born: 1982 age: 29)
	publisher:	Addison-Wesley
	published:	2001-03-19
This book contains no code. It about how to design a good UI using Metal as an example. It contains Sun’s standards for how many pixels to use for various purposes.
abe books anz abe books.co.uk abe books.de amazon.co.uk amazon.de abe books.ca iberlibro.com amazon.ca amazon.es Chapters Indigo abe books.fr abe books.com amazon.fr amazon.com abe books.it Barnes & Noble amazon.it powells.com o’reilly safari sony e-books
Greyed out stores probably do not have the item in stock

	recommend book⇒Java Look and Feel Design Guidelines: Advanced Topics
	by:	Sun Microsystems	978-0-201-77582-2	paperback
		(born: 1982 age: 29)
	publisher:	Addison-Wesley
	published:	2001-12-27
It is about how to design a good UI using Metal as an example.
abe books anz abe books.co.uk abe books.de amazon.co.uk amazon.de abe books.ca iberlibro.com amazon.ca amazon.es Chapters Indigo abe books.fr abe books.com amazon.fr amazon.com abe books.it Barnes & Noble amazon.it powells.com o’reilly safari sony e-books
Greyed out stores probably do not have the item in stock

	recommend book⇒GUI Bloopers: Don’ts and Do’s for Software Developers and Web Designers
	by:	Jeff Johnson	978-1-55860-582-4	paperback
	publisher:	Morgan Kaufmann
	published:	2000-03-17
Works by analysing 82 examples of bad design.
abe books anz abe books.co.uk abe books.de amazon.co.uk amazon.de abe books.ca iberlibro.com amazon.ca amazon.es Chapters Indigo abe books.fr abe books.com amazon.fr amazon.com abe books.it Barnes & Noble amazon.it powells.com o’reilly safari sony e-books
Greyed out stores probably do not have the item in stock