Java: How do you style Swing components?

Question

I'm writing my first Java project.

I was wondering if it's possible to style the Swing components (set a background color, remove the borders from the buttons, etc.)

Answer 1

If it's as simple as just changing the font, the background, the borders etc. Swing can do all these by default. Ie for a JButton:

JButton aButton ...
aButton.setBackground(new Color(...));  
aButton.setForeground(new Color(...));  
aButton.setFont(new Font(...));  
aButton.setBorder(null);  

Have a look at most of these methods at the JComponent . Or, for more component-specific methods, at the component's javadoc.

I would recommend you to read some basics in The Java Tutorial or the JComponent API or even a book such as Filthy Rich Clients or Java HowTo Program .

A custom Look and Feel would be a little too much. I suggest to first see if the above solutions don't fit your needs and then go for that.

Answer 2

It's certainly possible to do significant customisations because that is what the different look and feel options do.

You could look at the pluggable look and feel architecture , though this may be way overkill for what you want.

Alternatively you could perhaps subclass the existing components and use/override their existing methods, if it is only minor tweaks you need.

Answer 3

There are a few open soruce projects that allow you to style Swing components with CSS-like format.

You should take a look at the Java CSS project. It was introduced in this blog post .

Answer 4

For an application wide change, creating (or extending) your own pluggable look and feel is probably the correct solution. For special effects, you should also take a look at the painters framework . Note that they are part of swingx, not core Swing.

Answer 5

If you want to style your components heavily, getting a 3rd party Look-And-Feel and using that may be your best choice. My personal favorite is Substance which even has an API for creating completely custom LAFs on top of Substance.