New Twilight skin for Swing applications

April 25th, 2009

In addition to bug fixes and performance improvements in Substance 5.2 (code-named Quebec), there are a few new skins, such as Dust and Dust Coffee. Twilight skin joins the ranks in the latest 5.2dev drop, and it is inspired by the color schemes of the Bespin web code editor spearheaded by Ben (@bgalbs) and Dion (@dalmaer). If you want to take it for a spin, click on the WebStart button below:

To use it in your application, you have the following three options:

  • -Dswing.defaultlaf=org.jvnet.substance.skin.SubstanceTwilightLookAndFeel
  • UIManager.setLookAndFeel(new SubstanceTwilightLookAndFeel())
  • UIManager.setLookAndFeel("org.jvnet.substance.skin.SubstanceTwilightLookAndFeel");

Here are a few screenshots that show this new skin. A small frame with a tabbed pane and a few different controls:

A frame with menu bar, tool bar and status bar from SwingX project:

A thumbnail of the main Substance test application (click for full-size view):

As with all Substance core skins, this is work in progress and will be polished over time. In the meantime, you’re more than welcome to take the latest 5.2dev drop for a spin and leave your comments. Release candidate for Substance 5.2 is scheduled for May 11 and the final release is scheduled for May 25.