Kirill Grouchnikov's Blog

Substance 2.1 official release

• JGoodies Looks' package for drop shadows support on popup windows (menus, tooltips etc)
  
  
• Heap status panel when application is run under decorated mode has been added. The panel can be shown / hidden from the top-level frame menu. Clicking on the panel runs the garbage collector. This panel is shown only when substancelaf.heapStatusPanel VM flag (no value needed) is specified.
  
  
• Added optional rectangular shaper for buttons.
  
  
• Added optional wave gradient painter for buttons.
  
  
• Menu items in the same JMenu or JPopupMenu are aligned so that the texts start at the same X offset. This functionality takes into account menu item icons, menu item marks (for JRadioButtonMenuItem and JCheckBoxMenuItem) and nested menu icons.
  
  
  
  
• Support for Mac-like indication on frames that have unsaved content. Application should set SubstanceLookAndFeel.WINDOW_MODIFIED client property on either the JRootPane of the corresponding frame / dialog / internal frame or on the JInternalFrame. The value that corresponds to unsaved state is Boolean.TRUE. See 31-second AVI movie (530 KB) illustrating the technique.
  
  
• Support for Mac-like indication on tabs in JTabbedPane that have unsaved content. Application should set SubstanceLookAndFeel.WINDOW_MODIFIED client property on the tabbed pane's Component (if it's JComponent). The value that corresponds to unsaved state is Boolean.TRUE. See 67-second AVI movie (1.2 MB) illustrating the technique.
  
  
• Support for NetBeans-like close button on tabs in JTabbedPane. Application should set SubstanceLookAndFeel.TABBED_PANE_CLOSE_BUTTONS_PROPERTY client property on either the tabbed pane's Component (if it's JComponent), JTabbedPane (for all tabs of that pane) or the UIManager (for all tabbed panes). The value that corresponds to tab with close button is Boolean.TRUE. In addition, there's rollover effect on enabled tabs (like on any other control such as buttons or scroll bars). See 45-second AVI movie (810 KB) illustrating the technique.
  
  
• The substancelaf.fontSizeExtra VM flag specifies the base font size for all UI controls. The value is integer followed by optional plus + or minus - sign. The integer value plus 11 is the base font size for all UI controls. If plus sign follows the integer value, the base font will be bold. If this flag is not specified, the base font size is 11. For example, -Dsubstancelaf.fontSizeExtra=3+ results in
  
  
• Xoetrope XUI has contributed their color wheel chooser panel:
  
  
• Twenty one additional themes have been provided in the Theme pack plugin.
  
  
• Additional Brushed metal watermark has been added in org.jvnet.substance.watermarkpack.ExtraBrushedMetalWatermark. This watermark is in the Watermark pack plugin.
  
  
• Custom UI delegates for NetBeans components (tabbed container and sliding button) have been added under NetBeans.
  
  
• Eight additional button shapers have been provided in the Button shaper pack plugin.
  
  

Comments

• Hi Kirill,

  I have experimented with Substance for a little while now and I really like it. Well done!
  I need to rotate tab handles, e.g. have the tabs on the right with icon north, rotated text center, and close button south. Can you do this easily in Substance?
  Raj.

  Posted by: r_nagappan on December 13, 2005 at 02:35 PM

• Well done Kirill! Substance became my standard L&F and it is also a pleasure to work with NetBeans 5.0 beta and the Substance plugin.

  Stephan

  Posted by: bardubitzki on December 14, 2005 at 01:43 PM

• Raj,
  I have added your request to a list of features scheduled for the next version (2.2). Thanks for the suggestion.
  Stephan,
  Thanks. By the way, the NetBeans module is a joint project by me and Tim Boudreau.

  Posted by: kirillcool on December 14, 2005 at 01:54 PM

• Than also many thanks to Tim.

  Posted by: bardubitzki on December 14, 2005 at 01:58 PM

• Thanks for including the rotated tabs in the next release. I have another feature to request, that SubstanceLookAndFeel.setCurrentTheme() have a variant or option so that it does *not* overwrite all UI features. I am using JGoodies for some UI elements and Substance for others (and it looks remarkably good), but if I try to change the Substance theme it overwrites everything in the UIManager colors. I'd like to change the colors for the Substance UI components but not the JGoodies ones.

  Raj.

  Posted by: r_nagappan on December 16, 2005 at 03:59 PM

• Raj,

  Please contact me directly at kirillcool [at] yahoo.com so we can discuss this matter further. I'd like to see the screenshots (perhaps that'll help me improve Substance in the areas where you prefer JGoodies?) and to discuss the best way (API) to provide what you need.

  Posted by: kirillcool on December 17, 2005 at 12:31 AM

• 
  Hai Krill,

  I like your Theme very much.Actually I'm addicted to it. Can you include
  more themes like Substance, like in WindowBlinds . This can make
  Java more exciting and erich the user experience. My sincere thanks
  to You and Tim for making this happen.Your NetBeans theme is too
  Cool!! Wow!! That surely rocks. Please do create more such themes.

  Posted by: sound14 on December 24, 2005 at 11:41 AM

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License.