In addition to bug fixes and performance improvements in Substance 5.2 (code-named Quebec), i’m planning to introduce a few new skins. The first is Dust which is based on the artwork done by Rico Sta Cruz and Kido Mariano for Ubuntu. If you want to take it for a spin, click on the WebStart button below and change the skin to Dust from the “Skins” menu:

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

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

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. Dust is also the first skin that is using the experimental color schemes definition file. While the existing Autumn and Nebula skins have been moved to use such files as well, this functionality is planned to be officially supported in the next major Substance release.

In the meantime, you’re more than welcome to take the latest 5.2dev drop for a spin and leave your comments.

It is always exciting to see an elegant and polished desktop application, and it is doubly so when Swing is the UI toolkit of choice. Željko Ziriković is the mastermind behind Revolucion, a new Swing-based media player. And while Mikael Grev‘s initial work on his own media player has shown great promise, it hasn’t progressed to handling the real media. Željko‘s work appears to be much more complete and functional, and i’m eagerly looking forward to see the code when it is released in the next few weeks.

In the meantime, enjoy the video walkthrough (switch to full screen and HD), and click on the screenshots below.

I am extremely pleased today to announce the official release for version 4.0 of Flamingo component suite (code-named Fainnear). As detailed in the roadmap for this release, the goal was to provide the missing functionality from the Office 2007 Command Bar, and the journey that has started in September 2005 has arrived at its most important milestone so far.

I can finally say that the Flamingo ribbon can be used to create Swing ribbon-driven applications. While some of the minor functionality will have to be postponed to the next few releases, Fainnear provides all the major building blocks to create sophisticated ribbon content and wire it to the custom application logic. The release notes for version 4.0 contain the detailed information on the contents of this release which include:

• Application menu button and application menu
• Application title bar
• Resize and resize sequencing policies
• Scrolling shrinked ribbon content
• Rich tooltips
• Key tips
• Ribbon minimized mode
• Visual groups in ribbon bands
• Ribbon flow bands
• Hosting core Swing components in ribbon
• Rich popup panels
• Ribbon help button
• A03 plugin for Flamingo
• High fidelity Substance skins
• Polished command button strip visuals
• Control over command button gap scaling

To see the Flamingo ribbon component in action under core look-and-feels, run the following WebStart demo:

To see the Flamingo ribbon component in action under Substance look-and-feel, run the following WebStart demo:

If you want to test the ribbon in your applications, you would need the following (the last two only for applications running under Substance look-and-feel):

• The 4.0final drop of Flamingo (code-named Fainnear)
• The 5.1final drop of Substance (code-named Panama)
• The 5.1final drop of Substance Flamingo plugin

You are more than welcome to take Flamingo 4.0final for a ride and report any problems in the project mailing lists, forums or issue tracker.

I would like to thank all the early adopters that have tried the early development drops of Flamingo 4.0. Special thanks go to Andrey Eremchenko for extensive reporting and verifying of complex usability scenarios, especially for minimized, shrinked and popup functionality.

Sample screenshots of Flamingo 4.0 in action:

I am very pleased today to announce the official release 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 official releases:

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

You are more than welcome to take Substance 5.1final for a ride and report any problems in the project mailing lists, forums or issue tracker.

Sample screenshots of Substance 5.1 in action: