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Synthetica 2.2.0: The Enterprise Look and Feel
URL: JAVASOFT Software Engineering
At 3:58 PM on Jan 1, 2007, Wolfgang Zitzelsberger wrote:
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Synthetica is based on Synth, which is part of version 1.5 of the Java2 Platform, Standard Edition. It provides components with rounded borders, shadowed popup menus, nice icons and a new, fresh look. Moreover, it enables developers to modify existing LAF's, or to create their own LAF only by editing a xml based configuration file. Developers don't have to write complex Java-GUI-Code, but can integrate their own code.
Synthetica comes along with an extended FileChooser to support fileoperations like cut, copy, delete with multithreaded capabilities. All file-views are sortable. Once Synthetica is a developer’s active LAF, the JFileChooser component supports all the above features.
New features:
* New, animated theme called SyntheticaOrangeMetallic Look and Feel.
* Animation support for buttons, menuItems, scrollBars, progressBars, tabbedPaneTabs and focus.
* Icon separator support for popup menus.
* Focus support for scrollpanes and text components.
* Backgroundimage support for text components.
* Better indent correction for popup menus.
* About 50% smaller library file size.
* Added 'enter' key support for the FileChooser filename field.
* Updated themes (optimized BlueMoon theme).
* Some refactorings.
Product Information:
http://www.javasoft.de/jsf/public/products/synthetica
Features compared to Synth:
http://www.javasoft.de/jsf/public/products/synthetica/features
Themes and Screenshots:
http://www.javasoft.de/jsf/public/products/synthetica/themes
Webstart Demo:
http://www.javasoft.de/jsf/public/products/synthetica/demo
SyntheticaAddons DemoCenter:
http://www.javasoft.de/jsf/public/products/syntheticaaddons/demo
9 replies so far (
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Re: Synthetica 2.2.0: The Enterprise Look and Feel
Congratulations on the animated theme. I think it has an issue with disabled menus - they are rolled over (under OrangeMetallic) unlike the main theme.Re: Synthetica 2.2.0: The Enterprise Look and Feel
Thanks.Yes, the rollover effect appears on disabled top level menus - it will be fixed...
Re: Synthetica 2.2.0: The Enterprise Look and Feel
It appears that in order to provide the animation, you use a sequence of bundled images (one for every animation frame). Understandably, this makes the jar substantially bigger. I'm not a big expert on Synth-based LAFs, so forgive me if my question has an obvious answer - wouldn't it be possible to use some Java2D code to cut down on the amount of bundled images for the animations (especially if the feedback on this is so positive that you decide to provide this on all the themes)?In addition, it appears that the animations on icon-only buttons are rather distracting (at least for me). They look great on buttons with text, but not so much on the toolbar buttons in the test app, drawing too much attention away from the icon itself.
Re: Synthetica 2.2.0: The Enterprise Look and Feel
Well, Synthetica is based on images and it's right - every animation frame needs a separate image. I've checked the images which are responsible for animations and without these images the library size will shrink round about 45KB. That's not too much for eye candy. The library size is mainly caused by some other larger images and I'm sure there's some potential to shrink the OrangeMetallic library.The first step including animations was made to address graphic artists which have a very well knowledge of their own graphical tools. Generally they don't want to get bothered with complex 2D programming for creating effects which can be easily created with their preferred tool. This does not mean that we don't add programmatically created effects in the future.
For toolbars in real applications I prefer larger buttons with text at the bottom like the buttons in the SyntheticaAddons Demo. People who prefer small icon buttons for toolbars and don't like the default style can customize the theme and apply a complete different animation (or simply no animation) only for toolbar buttons by binding the new style to the buttons name.
Re: Synthetica 2.2.0: The Enterprise Look and Feel
The cursor should be displayed for non-editable JTextField.This would be a user feedback when the control has the focus
and when the user is scrolling content that can not be displayed in the field.
Re: Synthetica 2.2.0: The Enterprise Look and Feel
Hm, in this new release we've added focus support. A focus will be also displayed for non-editable textfields. We avoid to display a caret because it wrongly suggests the user that the field is editable.Re: Synthetica 2.2.0: The Enterprise Look and Feel
I believe there is no difference in quality between Swing and native WinXP applications when using Synthetica.I tested some more and I noticed:
- Focus feedback missing for tabs. There should be a marker on the tab or on the JTabbedPane when the user is able to change the selected tab using the keyboard;
- JSplitPanes dividers are rendered only when dragged;
- Main frame corners are painted white because the border has round corners. The background of the main frame should be transparent(?).
Re: Synthetica 2.2.0: The Enterprise Look and Feel
> - Main frame corners are painted white because the> border has round corners. The background of the main
> frame should be transparent(?).
Wishful thinking - Swing has no true support for translucent top-level windows.
Re: Synthetica 2.2.0: The Enterprise Look and Feel
As Kirill already mentioned, the corner issue is caused by a Swing lack. All other issues are configurable - in the OrangeMetallic Theme the focus for tabbedPane tabs is already enabled by default.