I downloaded JTattoo.jar for the look and feel of my application. However I am confused, is the look-and-feel concept a run-time issue (I will only see the JTattoo look and feel when I run the application but not on the Designer)?? or can I have the components added in the Palette so I can drag and drop the components??
Can you provide me with info to work with libraries other than Swing and have more desktop items in the Palette??
Thanks
The look and feel will be applied in run time rather than design time because IDE doesn't support that in design time naively.
If you mean you need swing components with external functionality try SwingX
Moreover you can add swingx components (or any other component library) to netbeans designer for example by following these steps:
Go to the Palette Manager (Tools → Palette → Swing/AWT Components), click New Category…, name it SwingX, click Add from Library…, and select the SwingX library that you created in step 3. Activate all the components (Ctrl-A), choose the SwingX category, and you’re done!
Related
Background:
I needed to make a modern looking appearance in my java applications. And I recently knew that the "Look and Feel" of a java application can be changed as we want. The following code example it uses something called "SubstanceOfficeSilver2007LookAndFeel" which helped me to get an rought idea about changing the "Look and Feel".
try {
UIManager.setLookAndFeel(new SubstanceOfficeSilver2007LookAndFeel());
} catch (Exception ex) {
LOGGER.log(Level.SEVERE, "Substance Look and Feel Error", ex);
}
// TabbedPane border settings in substance look and feel.
UIManager.put(SubstanceLookAndFeel.TABBED_PANE_CONTENT_BORDER_KIND,
TabContentPaneBorderKind.DOUBLE_PLACEMENT);
// Cut, copy, paste menu in TextField with substance look and feel.
UIManager.put(LafWidget.TEXT_EDIT_CONTEXT_MENU, true);
This code was found in here.
Questions:
I normally create java swing applications in NetBeans by using its drag and drop facilities; I do not code the UI of my application. My first question is can change the Look and Feel of my applications which are already made by using NetBean's drag and drop facilities.
Can we add those new Look and Feel components to our NetBean's palette and simply make changes in our UI by dragging and dropping them.
As an Example; In above code example it gives some UI like "MS Office 2007" and there will be some "tabs" and "ribbons" like "MS Office 2007".Is there a way to simply drag and drag new "Ribbon" from palette?
Assume that we have created a java swing application by completely coding; I mean without using NetBeans or Eclipse design view facilities. Is there a way to edit the appearance of our swing application by converting our code to a code that which is eligible for edition in Design view?
I am not to sure about using Netbeans GUI builder to change the look and feel that
drastically. The best option would be to code everything by hand which will give you a better understanding and loose coupling using MVC design. I would personally if you are going after a new look and feel with modern UI is switch over to JavaFX and use scenebuilder by Gluon to customize how you want it. Plus you can use CSS so there are no limitations. So I would have to say for more modern looking java application nowadays use JavaFX.
Sorry if it did not help you like if it has to be in Swing or not.
I wanna create a simple application with Java. I designed the main template in my head but I have a kind of design problem.
I am using JMenuBar and JMenu. It works fine but it's location is not exactly what I want.
In ubuntu, I use Eclipse and it has menu in titlebar:
As you can see , menus are at top.(File,Edit,Source,etc..)
However, My application is not the same.
Here is my application.
JMenu is working fine but in title bar there is no menu.
What can I do to create this menus ?
Are there any component for it ?
Thank you.
Best Regards.
Ömer.
You may be interested by the Jayatana project
You're using the right components, but have a Look and Feel (L&F) problem. Take a look here:
http://docs.oracle.com/javase/tutorial/uiswing/lookandfeel/plaf.html
however, I can't guarantee that changing the look and feel will make it look exactly as you want.
The general problem is that Swing abstracts away from the OS's GUI components. Eclipse is also Java, but SWT instead of Swing, so it doesn't have the problem. There may be third party libraries that integrate better with the native L&F - Maurice seems to have found one. Alternatively, you could switch to SWT entirely, but that might be a bit much just to get the right L&F.
I have created one analogue clock with Java. But i want to make it dock-able in NetBeans IDE (like shown in the screen shot).
like the left side navigator, files, bottom tasks are hidden, once i press it it shows in left or bottom
Any help on this, how can i tell my NetBeans plugin to act like dock-able? After making it working i would like to publish it to the community plugin.
This is not too complicated using the NetBeans Rich Client Platform. Follow this tutorial - http://platform.netbeans.org/tutorials/nbm-paintapp.html#impMod
Basically, you'll create a ClockTopComponent using the wizard. TopComponents automatically get nice windowing features for free, like docking, hiding, tiling, etc.
FAQs about TopComponent
I am planning to develop an java application,so i am in search of some library's that can give a pleasant look and feel and easy to customize.I tried swing but the look and feel is not much i expected and creating a look and feel is not so easy i think (i am not sure). i am from web development. In my previous question Java GUI development alternative to swt or swing most guys recommend javafx and i am working on an 64 bit linux machine and javafx is not available for that. I need some advice ,
Better to create own look and feel library else suggest some good library for look and feel
Note:i tried nimbus look and feel.
I can just give some suggestions that I am using in conjunction with Swing:
JRibbon/Flamingo (Office 2007 like ribbons)
Substance Look and Feel (works very well with JRibbon/Flamingo and is quite configurable, with a lot of predefined skins)
SwingX (additional/extended Swing components)
Note that for Substance there's a fork called Insubstantial which contains also a Flamingo fork named Peacock.
JRibbon is the best replacement for menu and toolbar in a Java application. JRibbon gives a better user experiance then ordinary menubar and toolbar. It is look like rich UI Component in Java. JRibbon has all facility like Microsoft Office Ribbon have like application menu, taskbar.
Source : JRibbon Tutorial
I've come across Netbeans but is there any tools out there that lets you build things event driven ?
I'm looking for a feature like being able to drag and drop UI components, and add methods to buttons directly by double clicking it (kinda like visualbasic) and viewing the source.
You can use Eclipse + Jigloo GUI Builder plugin.
In Netbean you have Matisse. See Designing a Swing GUI in NetBeans IDE
There's the Java Visual Editor.
This is nice if you're used to (or are considering using) Eclipse, which in itself is a very popular Java IDE.
IntelliJ IDEA features a nice GUI builder capable of using several layout managers. It's available in the open source community edition. I personally hate GUI builder and prefer more flexible solution like manually coding the layout with the all powerful and easy to use MiG Layout.