Text components in Substance 6.0

One of the items on the roadmap for version 6.0 of Substance look-and-feel (code-named Sonoma) is to polish the appearance of existing components. Today i’m going to talk about visual enhancements done for the text components in the latest 6.0dev drop of the library.

These enhancements address two major points:

  • Adding more contrast to screens that have a lot of user input fields, such as text fields, formatted text fields and password fields – by creating an “inset” look
  • Modernizing the appearance of these controls – by smoothing the corners and borders

Here is a screenshot with a few text fields under Business skin in release 5.3:

https://substance.dev.java.net/release-info/6.0/textfields-business-old.png

And here are the same text fields under the latest 6.0dev drop:

https://substance.dev.java.net/release-info/6.0/textfields-business-new.png

The same text fields under Gemini skin in release 5.3:

https://substance.dev.java.net/release-info/6.0/textfields-gemini-old.png

and under the same skin in the latest 6.0dev drop:

https://substance.dev.java.net/release-info/6.0/textfields-gemini-new.png

The same text fields under a more colorful Dust Coffee skin in release 5.3:

https://substance.dev.java.net/release-info/6.0/textfields-dustcoffee-old.png

and under the same skin in the latest 6.0dev drop:

https://substance.dev.java.net/release-info/6.0/textfields-dustcoffee-new.png

Finally, the same text fields under the dark Graphite skin in release 5.3:

https://substance.dev.java.net/release-info/6.0/textfields-graphite-old.png

and under the same skin in the latest 6.0dev drop:

https://substance.dev.java.net/release-info/6.0/textfields-graphite-new.png

Note that this is still work on progress, and you’re more than welcome to leave comments on the new look.

Related posts:

  1. Spinners in Substance 6.0 One of the items on the roadmap for version 6.0 of Substance look-and-feel (code-named Sonoma)...
  2. Comboboxes in Substance 6.0 One of the items on the roadmap for version 6.0 of Substance look-and-feel (code-named Sonoma)...
  3. Starting work on Substance plugin for JIDE components This week i have started working on providing Substance plugin for the JIDE common layer...
  4. Modern borders on Swing components One item suggested by Romain a year ago and missing up until now in Substance...

This entry was posted on Tuesday, October 27th, 2009 at 8:14 amand is filed under Substance. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

14 Responses to “Text components in Substance 6.0”

  • RS Says:
    October 27th, 2009 at 9:13 am

    Looks like there is some influence form KDE’s Oxygen theme for Qt.

  • JOKe Says:
    October 27th, 2009 at 11:34 am

    I like the new 6.0dev but for some applications I think I will prefer the older way. It will be nice if you can enable/disable the new look and feel of text fields with rounder corners.
    Many people will like the old way which is more “windows native” and many people maybe will prefer the rounder corners which are more Mac or KDE 4 oriented.

  • Pedro Duque Vieira Says:
    October 27th, 2009 at 5:16 pm

    Looks very nice. I agree with JOKe, this should be customizable.

  • Kirill Grouchnikov Says:
    October 27th, 2009 at 8:33 pm

    RS – this was not intentional, but now that you mention it, it does look very similar.

    JOKe, Pedro – it’s quite unlikely that there will be an option to toggle the previous look. It’s just not feasible to have all these switches and continue to have a maintainable body of code.

    Thanks
    Kirill

  • Tbee Says:
    October 27th, 2009 at 11:50 pm

    I like the borders, gives the screen a more refined look.

  • soma Says:
    October 28th, 2009 at 3:38 am

    I like the new look, they certainly look more modern!

  • Nick Says:
    October 28th, 2009 at 6:59 am

    I really like this new look. It does a great job of indicating that something has been/has to be input.

    In fact, it’s rather annoying as once you’ve looked at 6.0dev, the 5.3 text fields look rubbish in comparison!

  • Adam Says:
    October 28th, 2009 at 8:33 am

    Great job, I am always surprised at how much better things can look with such minor tweaks. Attention to detail is why Substance rocks!

  • Mathias Says:
    October 28th, 2009 at 10:32 am

    I like the lock icon, but I don’t like that it shifts the text contents to the right. You could move it to the right side of the component, and perhaps make it bigger so it stands out.

  • Kirill Grouchnikov Says:
    October 28th, 2009 at 12:27 pm

    Mathias,

    The location / size / insets of the lock indication have remained unchanged since May 2006, and i have not received any feedback about it. As far as i can tell, either everybody is OK with it, or nobody is using it – most probably the later.

    At the present moment i am inclined to leave the visuals as they are. Since the lock is an opt-in, you can always create your own widget (following the code in this class).

    Thanks
    Kirill

  • Marcel Says:
    October 29th, 2009 at 10:53 pm

    I agree to Mathias. Don’t shift the text to the right. The first character should align accordingly to the other rows. This is very important…

  • Majid Keshtidar Says:
    October 31st, 2009 at 8:03 pm

    great move, final release date?

  • Kirill Grouchnikov Says:
    October 31st, 2009 at 8:16 pm

    Majid,

    I have just started working on version 6.0 and i don’t have any specific release date. It will take anywhere between 3 and 5 months, placing it around early spring 2010.

    Thanks
    Kirill

  • Java desktop links of the week, November 2 | Jonathan Giles Says:
    November 1st, 2009 at 12:57 pm

    [...] Flamingo 4.2, and progress in the Substance look and feel. In particular, he has been focusing on text components, comboboxes (including feedback on comboboxes), and [...]