[java] Look N Feel

You might want to check this article out on how to create your own themes.

For a couple of look and feels, here are a list of some of them that I know off.
Metouia l&f
Incors
Javatoo: Very large selection of l&f

That should be enough to get you started.

Thanks Nuffsaid you gave me the address for about.com site before i think, for some reason they removed the book!! meh whatya gonna do, thanks for the help

I''m wondering is it worth my while designing my own Look N Feel for the game.

i don''t need a complex one just to be able to handle simple dialogs, i''ve a limited time of four months and i also have to develop a 3DInterface (Xith3D) and design a pluggable architecture(hopfully)

How fast can a simple Look N Feel be developed?

A simple one can be built pretty quickly. You just need to subclass one of the existing look and feel.

For example, subclass Metal and change the colours.

To subclass a look and feel you need to subclass every class that it contains. In Metal''s case, there are 39 classes.

It is pretty simple once you get the hang of it. Take a look at javax.swing.plaf.metal.MetalLookAndFeel.java. It is pretty well commented. It sets everything up. It tells the JVM which classes to use to do all the drawing and also sets up colour refs. It also sets up default short cuts/quick keys. The next thing you can look at are the xxxxxUI.java classes. You override the paint method if you want to change the way the component is drawn. In Metal''s case, you need to look at MetalButtonUI and BasicButtonUI(Metal''s parent class) to put it all together. Metal does not draw a fancy button, just overrides some of the actions and the colours.

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