Swing Looks ...Great!
The theme for Synthetica called "BlackEye" looks compelling.

(from http://www.javasoft.de/synthetica/themes/) There is also a WebStart demo available (works smoothly on Mac). Synthetica is distributed under a commercial license, but is free for non-commercial applications.
Adam, I think this particular L&F is fully commercial i.e. not free for non-commercial applications.
Only their Synthetica Standard L&F is free for that type of applications.
Posted by Andrea Cisternino on November 29, 2010 at 12:08 PM CET #
take a look at http://www.pushing-pixels.org/?cat=1 for really good looking swing.
Posted by Xavier on November 29, 2010 at 12:31 PM CET #
We currently use in our project this excellent L&F jTattoo http://www.jtattoo.net/index.html
which is really free in full for non-commercial use.
Apart from the screenshots in its own site, there are some more ones, from the app we develop by using it, at http://www.javaforge.com/project/jplay
under the Pictures tab in the Wiki page.
Carlos Hoces
Posted by Carlos Hoces on November 29, 2010 at 02:25 PM CET #
@Xavier,
Thanks for the hint! I used Substance already in my various projects. It worked great!:
http://www.adam-bien.com/roller/abien/entry/swing_looks_great_part_ii
thanks!,
adam
Posted by adam-bien.com on November 29, 2010 at 03:32 PM CET #
@Andrea,
yes Synthetica is commercial for commercial applications. But: is nothing wrong with that :-),
thanks,
adam
Posted by adam-bien.com on November 29, 2010 at 03:34 PM CET #
@Carlos,
thanks! I will check out jTattoo,
adam
Posted by adam-bien.com on November 29, 2010 at 03:35 PM CET #
Another high quality Synthetica theme is already under construction - stay tuned...
Posted by Wolfgang Zitzelsberger on November 29, 2010 at 04:31 PM CET #
@Wolfgang,
ping me, when it is ready. Or provide at least a screenshot -> it should be enough for a post :-),
thanks!,
adam
Posted by adam-bien.com on November 29, 2010 at 05:07 PM CET #
Swing Looks....Not Great
My experience on a standard windows box running Java 6 is ....
1. Dialogue pop up saying "Unable to launch the application"
2. Details of error :-
--- start ---
com.sun.deploy.net.FailedDownloadException: Unable to load resource: http://www.jyloo.com/downloads/public/synthetica/syntheticaBlackEyeSimpleDemo.jnlp
at com.sun.deploy.net.DownloadEngine.actionDownload(Unknown Source)
at com.sun.deploy.net.DownloadEngine.getCacheEntry(Unknown Source)
at com.sun.deploy.net.DownloadEngine.getCacheEntry(Unknown Source)
at com.sun.deploy.net.DownloadEngine.getResourceCacheEntry(Unknown Source)
at com.sun.deploy.net.DownloadEngine.getResourceCacheEntry(Unknown Source)
at com.sun.deploy.net.DownloadEngine.getResource(Unknown Source)
at com.sun.deploy.net.DownloadEngine.getResource(Unknown Source)
at com.sun.javaws.Launcher.updateFinalLaunchDesc(Unknown Source)
at com.sun.javaws.Launcher.prepareToLaunch(Unknown Source)
at com.sun.javaws.Launcher.prepareToLaunch(Unknown Source)
at com.sun.javaws.Launcher.launch(Unknown Source)
at com.sun.javaws.Main.launchApp(Unknown Source)
at com.sun.javaws.Main.continueInSecureThread(Unknown Source)
at com.sun.javaws.Main$1.run(Unknown Source)
at java.lang.Thread.run(Unknown Source)
--- end ---
And again, another reason why Java gains minimal traction on the desktop ...
Posted by Gareth Gale on November 29, 2010 at 05:14 PM CET #
@Gareth,
in your case the problem is not Swing rather than the installation (connectivity / proxy?).
I only had the opportunity to test it on Mac - it worked out of the box.
Java has minimal traction on the desktop - for enterprise projects is still very appealing,
thanks for the stacktrace :-),
adam
Posted by adam-bien.com on November 29, 2010 at 05:31 PM CET #
Adam,
Thanks for the quick response. I realised the root cause is probably a connection issue c.f. Swing per se, but it does illustrate what experience a newbie user could receive. In this experiment I did nothing to my settings (the same settings that would allow me to view something like an RIA running out of the browser).
My beef is with the delivery mechanism I guess more so than anything else ..
Thanks.
Posted by Gareth on November 29, 2010 at 05:56 PM CET #
I am using Jyloo Synthetica in a new commerical app and am really happy with it.
I had to migrate from Substance which is now parked << Important - Substance is currently not being developed further or supported.
Posted by aloleary on November 29, 2010 at 06:18 PM CET #
@aloleary
Substance 6.1 was released on August 9th, 2010...
Posted by Xavier on November 30, 2010 at 10:22 AM CET #
@Xavier
It was discontinued/paused etc on:
30 Aug 2010
https://substance.dev.java.net/servlets/ReadMsg?list=users&msgNo=1546
This should be made transparent to users.
Posted by 87.198.56.10 on November 30, 2010 at 12:15 PM CET #
@Adam
Just wanted to let you know that a new Synthetica theme has been released.
Screenshots:
http://www.jyloo.com/images/blog/release/synthetica/V2.12/classyHighlights.png
http://www.jyloo.com/images/screenshots/syntheticaClassy/tunesMockup.png
Posted by wzberger on March 10, 2011 at 01:30 PM CET #
guys, i;m in crossroad.
still i'm stick with swing for next project or let html+css+javascript[+jdbc] (standalone) to replace swing for my next project ?
Posted by Jaya on September 17, 2011 at 06:28 PM CEST #