Substance 5.1 – introducing Jitterbug

January 4th, 2009

Jitterbug is a visual editor for creating and editing color schemes in Substance look-and-feel. It primarily addresses the scenarios where you need to translate design mockups or emulate existing UI visuals as a Substance skin. Created during the rework of the Office Blue skin, it was used to create and refine all seventeen color schemes currently used in this skin.

The following screenshot shows Jitterbug in action (click to see full size view):

To see the Jitterbug in action, run the following signed WebStart demo:

Here i would like to ask for your feedback. This tool was created to scratch my own itch – it was getting quite tedious creating and tweaking color schemes. I did try to make both flows straightforward and intuitive. However, i cannot be an objective judge of my own creation. As such, i am not detailing any instructions on how to use Jitterbug. If you find yourself stuck in the middle of the process, or the flows do not simply make sense, let me know in the comments.