This is still work in progress, but in the meantime you’re welcome to take the latest 5.1dev drop of core Substance (code-named Panama) and the latest 5.1dev drop of Substance Flamingo plugin. Release candidate for Substance is scheduled for January 26 and the final release is scheduled for February 9.
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.
A few months ago, this posting on the Substance users mailing list has asked for better color matching of icons on disabled buttons. If you do not use the AbstractButton.setDisabledIcon API, the implementation of AbstractButton.getDisabledIcon uses the LookAndFeel.getDisabledIcon to create a disabled icon based on the current button icon. The default implementation of this method uses the GrayFilter class, which, while adequate for the core look-and-feels and most Substance skins, fails short for colored skins such as Autumn or Office Blue.
This has been addressed in the latest 5.1dev drop of the core Substance library. The screenshot below shows how a disabled button looked prior to these changes under Autumn skin (the copy button on the left):
And here is how it looks now:
Here is how the disabled icon looked like under Office Blue before:
And here is how it looks now:
In addition to using the color schemes of the current Substance skin, the new implementation also results in better fidelity to the original icon (especially visible under Autumn above).
Another change in the latest 5.1dev drop of Substance is much better support for themed icons. First introduced about two years ago, and revisited for Flamingo command buttons, it now supports a wider range of core Swing components and provides better rollover animations for Flamingo buttons.
Enabled by using the USE_DEFAULT_THEMED_ICONS client property, it was previously supported only on buttons and toggle buttons. This has been extended to labels, menus, menu items and tabs, along with removing support for per-component configuration. It is now a global property that can be installed on the UIManager.
The new implementation that better preserves the details of icons on disabled buttons also results in crisper and more recognizable icon details for the themed mode. Here is how the themed icons looked before under Autumn:
and here is how it looks now:
Here is how the themed icons looked before under Office Blue (almost unrecognizable, since the color schemes are very washed):
and here is how it looks now:
The support for themed mode has been reworked for Flamingo command buttons as well, bringing them in line with both the visuals and the rollover animation sequences (see the movie below). Here is a screenshot of the ribbon under Office Blue with full color icons:
and here is the same ribbon under the themed mode:
To illustrate the themed mode and rollover sequences in action, click on the following movie:
To see the themed Flamingo ribbon component in action, run the following WebStart demo and select the Use themed icons in the bottom right part of the application:
If you want to test the disabled and themed icons in your applications, you would need the following (the last two only for applications using Flamingo components):
The year is coming to an end, and it’s time to review what has happened on this blog over the last twelve months. I’ll start with the list of top ten most read posts, continue with the my own top ten favorites, and finish with the list of eleven interviews that i have conducted over this year.
Let’s start with the top ten most read posts published in 2008 as measured by Google Analytics:
Translucent and shaped windows in core Java talks about the new AWTUtilities class in 6u10 and support for modern top-level windows effects. Published in February, has around 13,800 reads.
Party Of One: Surviving A Hobby Open-Source Project talks about the specifics of one-man open-source projects and how to maintain a long-term level of commitment. It is the first of five part series on the subject. Published in May, has around 10,000 reads. The entire series has around 16,700 reads.
Swing, RIA and JavaFX – interview with Amy Fowler. Amy delves deep into the reasons behind the work on JavaFX, and where Swing fits into the future of client side Java. Published in May, has around 8,100 reads.
Sun setting down on the core Swing contains my thoughts on the demise of the core Swing as the primary Java desktop toolkit developed and promoted by Sun. Published in November, has around 7,200 reads.
Swing applications and Mac OS X menu bar shows how Swing application under non-Apple look-and-feel can place their menus on the system menu bar. Published in July, has around 3,600 reads
More tricks with translucent Swing windows follows up with the different effects achievable with the new translucent window support. Published in March, has around 3,300 reads.
Trust is hard to build and easy to destroy is a followup to the state of core Swing and addresses the lack of transparency that Sun has shown towards the desktop community. Published in November, has around 3,200 reads.
Soft clipping and per-pixel translucency for Swing windows is yet another entry that explores the translucent effects on top-level windows in Swing with 6u10+. Published in March, has around 2,900 reads. All together, the three articles on the subject have around 20,000 total reads.
While these have been the readers’ favorites, a few entries that didn’t enjoy a wider readership are worth highlighting. These are my personal favorites that were published in 2008:
Trust is hard to build and easy to destroy is the only entry from the “most popular” list that is going to appear here. Addressing the lack of transparency that Sun has shown towards the desktop community makes it the most important posting of the year in my eyes.
20 design blogs for UI developers aims to collect links for those readers that wish to learn from the best minds on the other side of the fence that still divides developers and designers.
Problem solving and innovation tries to warn against pursuing solutions just for the sake of innovation. If you are the only talking about how innovative your product is, you’re not solving your users’ problems.
Java on the desktop talks about my favorite Swing application of the year – Woopra desktop client.
Stricter checks on EDT violations in Substance is by far the most controversial decision that i have made in Substance 5.0+. It highlights yet another weakness of core Swing, and the number of Substance queries (going well into dozens) just highlights how low is the level of the subject awareness in the general developer community.
From Photoshop to code – conclusion is the last in the six-piece series on using Substance skinning APIs to implement a rich custom UI mocked in Photoshop.
Effective Java2D is a collection of tips from my work on bringing Substance performance in version 5.0 to be on par with other active core and third-party look-and-feels.
Finally, this year has seen a number of interviews with the people from Sun, as well as the Java desktop community.
Alexey Utkin – this is where it all started. It is rather unfortunate that JDICPlus has not made it through the end of the year.
Amy Fowler – should be quite an interesting read in a couple of years as well, just to see how Amy’s predictions have played out.
This year has also seen the number of RSS subscribers grow from 500 to around 1,400. If you still have not subscribed, click on the icon below to stay tuned in 2009! Happy New Year!
The year is coming to an end, and it’s time to review what has happened on this blog over the last twelve months. I’ll start with the list of top ten most read posts, continue with the my own top ten favorites, and finish with the list of eleven interviews that i have conducted over this year.
While these have been the readers’ favorites, a few entries that didn’t enjoy a wider readership are worth highlighting. These are my personal favorites that were published in 2008:
Finally, this year has seen a number of interviews with the people from Sun, as well as the Java desktop community.
