I am extremely pleased today to announce the availability of release candidate for version 5.1 of Substance look-and-feel (code-named Panama). The release notes for version 5.1 contain the detailed information on the contents of this release, and the migration guide describes two application-facing binary incompatibilities introduced in button shaper and highlight painter APIs.

This release includes the following:

• Rework of Office Blue skin
• Rework of Office Silver skin
• Extended skinning capabilities
• Improved performance
• Better support for disabled icons
• Better support for themed icons
• Visual editor for color schemes
• Extended support for very large fonts
• Vietnamese localization
• Extended tracing of EDT violations

Click on the button below to launch a signed WebStart application that shows the available Substance features.

The following sub-projects are also available as release candidates:

• Substance plugin for SwingX component suite build 1512 from January 5. See test application.
• Substance plugin for Flamingo component suite 4.0RC. See test applications.
• Substance Extras pack.

You are more than welcome to take Substance 5.1RC for a ride and report any problems in the project mailing lists, forums or issue tracker. The final release is scheduled for February 6. Only bugs will be fixed until that date.

Sample screenshots of Substance 5.1 in action: