Synth Look and Feel

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synth is a skinnable Java look and feel, which is configured with an XML property file. [1]

Contents

According to Sun, goals for synth were:

History

synth is available beginning with version J2SE 5.0 of Java (see Java version history). [2]

Java SE 6 Update 10 release and newer contain Nimbus, a cross-platform Look and Feel implemented with Synth. However, for backwards compatibility, Metal is still the default Swing look and feel. [3]

Architecture

Synth is a skinnable look and feel in which all painting is delegated to the components, without having to write any code (see Synth Look and Feel ). [4]

However synth does not provide a default look, and components that are not defined in the synth XML file will not be painted. It is however possible to assign a default style to all other widgets, and customize styles for some specific widgets only.

Example

The following XML declaration defines a style named textfield and binds it to all text fields. The defaultStyle allows to set a default font, foreground and background colors to all other widgets. 

<synth><styleid="defaultStyle"><fontname="Verdana"size="16"/><state><colorvalue="WHITE"type="BACKGROUND"/><colorvalue="BLACK"type="FOREGROUND"/></state></style><bindstyle="defaultStyle"type="region"key=".*"/><styleid="textfield"><state><colorvalue="yellow"type="BACKGROUND"/></state><imagePaintermethod="textFieldBorder"path="textfieldborder.png"sourceInsets="5 6 6 7"paintCenter="false"/><insetstop="5"left="6"bottom="6"right="7"/></style><bindstyle="textfield"type="region"key="TextField"/></synth>

Supposing that the XML declaration is defined in a file named synthExample.xml, the following code loads the XML definition file and sets the current look and feel to synth (loading a synth Look and Feel is done using the load method of the SynthLookAndFeel class):

SynthLookAndFeellaf=newSynthLookAndFeel();laf.load(newFile("synthExample.xml").toURI().toURL());UIManager.setLookAndFeel(laf);

See also

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References

  1. ↑ Scott Violet (2004-03-26). "The Synth Look and Feel". javadesktop.org. Retrieved 2013-03-09. Synth is new and provides for the description of the look and feel through an external XML file.
  2. ↑ "Taming Tiger: Ocean and Synth meet Metal". IBM. 2004-10-19. Retrieved 2012-11-13. Synth is new and provides for the description of the look and feel through an external XML file.
  3. ↑ "Nimbus Look and Feel (The Java Tutorials > Creating a GUI With JFC/Swing > Modifying the Look and Feel)". Sun Microsystems. Retrieved 2010-07-01.
  4. ↑ "Advanced Synth". IBM. 2005-02-01. Retrieved 2012-11-13. Synth lets developers rapidly create and deploy custom looks for an application by introducing the concept of a "skin" to Java UI programming


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