Synth Look and Feel

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synth is a skinnable Java look and feel, which is configured with an XML property file.^[1]

According to Sun, goals for synth were:

• Enable to create custom look without writing any code.
• Allow appearance to be configured from images.
• Provide the ability to customize the look of a component based on its named properties.
• Provide a centralized point for overriding the look of all components.
• Enable custom rendering based on images, or user-defined SynthPainters.

synth is available beginning with version J2SE 5.0 of Java (see Java version history).^[2]

Java SE 6 Update 10 release and newer contain Nimbus, a cross-platform Look and Feel implemented with Synth. However, for backwards compatibility, Metal is still the default Swing look and feel.^[3]

Synth is a skinnable look and feel in which all painting is delegated to the components, without having to write any code (see Synth Look and Feel).^[4]

However synth does not provide a default look, and components that are not defined in the synth XML file will not be painted. It is however possible to assign a default style to all other widgets, and customize styles for some specific widgets only.

The following XML declaration defines a style named textfield and binds it to all text fields. The defaultStyle allows to set a default font, foreground and background colors to all other widgets.

 <synth>
  <style id="defaultStyle">
    <font name="Verdana" size="16"/>
    <state>
      <color value="WHITE" type="BACKGROUND"/>
      <color value="BLACK" type="FOREGROUND"/>
    </state>
  </style>
  <bind style="defaultStyle" type="region" key=".*"/>
  <style id="textfield">
    <state>
      <color value="yellow" type="BACKGROUND"/>
    </state>
    <imagePainter method="textFieldBorder" path="textfieldborder.png"
                  sourceInsets="5 6 6 7" paintCenter="false"/>
    <insets top="5" left="6" bottom="6" right="7"/>
  </style>
  <bind style="textfield" type="region" key="TextField"/>
 </synth>

Supposing that the XML declaration is defined in a file named synthExample.xml, the following code loads the XML definition file and sets the current look and feel to synth (loading a synth Look and Feel is done using the load method of the SynthLookAndFeel class):

SynthLookAndFeel laf = new SynthLookAndFeel();
 laf.load(new File("synthExample.xml").toURI().toURL());
 UIManager.setLookAndFeel(laf);

• Swing, the standard cross-platform widget toolkit for Java
• Pluggable look and feel

• Synth Look and Feel API documentation
• synth file format
• synth tutorial
• another synth tutorial
• nimbus home page

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