Look and Feel
Java is able to change the look and feel of an application to provide
a platform independent graphical user interface. The NumericalChameleon
acts really as a chameleon in this case. It provides all standard
Look&Feels,
Metal-Themes, the Kunststoff-, the Metouia-, the NimROD, the Plastic- and
the Squareness
Look&Feel.
Standards
The standard Look&Feels are selectable by most computers.
- "Aqua (Mac OS X)" is the look and feel on Mac OS X (on Mac OS X only
due to licensing terms)
- "GTK+ 2.0" is the look and feel on Unix and GNU/Linux
- "Mac (Mac OS)" is the look and feel on Mac OS (on Mac OS X only due to
licensing terms)
- "Motif" is the look and feel of applications under UNIX (e. g. CDE)
- "Nimbus" is a platform independent Look&Feel-Standard (since Java
6 update 10)
- "Ocean" is a platform independent Look&Feel-Standard
- "Steel" is a platform independent Look&Feel-Standard
- "System" is the look and feel of your computer system
- "Windows" is the look and feel of Windows (on Windows only due to
licensing terms)
Alternatives
Kunststoff
The Kunststoff-Look&Feel is a Look&Feel from http://www.incors.org/archive.
The filename is "kunststoff.jar" and it is stored in the
subdirectory
"installationdirectory/lib". The Kunststoff-Look&Feel
is inherited by the Metal-Look&Feels. Therefore themes are also
supported.Note, that the Incors company doesn't maintain the Kunststoff
LnF anymore.
Metal
The Metal Look&Feel is the Standard Steel-Look&Feel plus
Metal-Themes enabled.
Metal-Themes
Metal-Themes are based on the platform independent "Metal"
Look&Feel. You have the control about color and font. The filename
of a theme have to end with ".theme". They should be stored
in "installationdirectory/data/themes/", otherwise the
NumericalChameleon will not find them. The following entries are supported
by the NumericalChameleon:
Key |
Format |
Description/Example |
name |
String |
Name of the theme |
primary1 |
red,green,blue-values (decimal) |
87,87,47 |
primary2 |
-"- |
159,151,111 |
primary3 |
-"- |
199,183,143 |
secondary1 |
-"- |
111,111,111 |
secondary2 |
-"- |
159,159,159 |
secondary3 |
-"- |
231,215,183 |
black |
-"- |
Definition von Schwarz |
white |
-"- |
Definition von Weiß |
ControlTextFont |
fontname,style,size |
Dialog,bold,12 |
SystemTextFont |
-"- |
Dialog,bold,12 |
UserTextFont |
-"- |
Dialog,bold,12 |
MenuTextFont |
-"- |
Dialog,bold,12 |
WindowTitleFont |
-"- |
Dialog,bold,12 |
SubTextFont |
-"- |
Dialog,plain,10 |
Please have a look at the themes "Steel.theme", it's the default
Metal Look&Feel, "Presentation.theme" for presentations and
"Contrast.theme" for two color driven laptops.
Metouia
The Metouia-Look&Feel is a free Look&Feel, themes are
also supported. In the past it was available at http://mlf.sourceforge.net.
NimROD
The NimROD-Look&Feel is a frei available Look&Feel. Download it
from http://personales.ya.com/nimrod/index-en.html
Themes are supported.
Plastic
The Plastic-Look&Feel is a free Look&Feel. Download
it from http://www.jgoodies.com
Squareness
The Squareness-Look&Feel is a free Look&Feel. Download
it from http://squareness.sourceforge.net
Themes for the Squareness-Look&Feel can be created with the Colorizer
(it is a tool of the Squareness project). Just create a file called "themepack.slftp"
with the Colorizer and copy it to the subdirectory called "installationdirectory/data/themes/java".
Delete
the file to get the default for Squareness.
More Alternatives
SkinIt
SkinIt is part of the Skin Look and Feel (as known as SkinLF).
Skin Look And Feel allows you to make any Java application skinable. Skin
Look And Feel is able to read GTK (The Gimp ToolKit) and KDE (The K Desktop
Environment) Skins. You can download SkinLF from http://www.L2FProd.com/software/skinlf.
L2FProd provides also themes for MacOS X (Aqua) and Windows XP. If
you're using SkinIt you'll not be able to use NumericalChameleon's Look
and Feels anymore.