We Keep Coding

Java Swing application under Gnome - use Adwaita (dark skin) window title bar

Is there a way for a Java Swing desktop application that runs in Gnome (3.14) on Linux (Debian) to make Gnome use the dark-themed (Adwaita) version of the window decoration?
I am using a custom dark Swing look-and-feel, and the only thing that is really annoying is that the title bar (native Gnome) is very bright. I already have used the Tweak tool to use Adwaita system-wide, but this doesn't kick in for applications that do not explicitly support dark-theme (e.g. Iceweasel, Icedove, Gimp, Libre Office, ...)
Here's a screenshot that illustrates the problem:

Ok, I found a viable solution for my specific system, so I will show what I did here. It is related to this question. In the accepted answer you can see that the issue is with legacy Gtk-2 applications, and that includes Java apparently. In the comments section there is a link to a Adwaita-Dark clone that applies the dark theme also to Gtk-2.
Unfortunately that theme is out-of-sync with Debian Jessie / Gnome 3.14 somehow, and if one installs that theme most widgets are broken in Iceweasel, Icedove etc. However. Since I don't care about the widgets but only the window title bar here, you can selectively use that clone only for the window decoraction.
So I downloaded that clone, and placed a symlink in ~/.local/share/themes/adwaita-again (you can use any name here it seems). Then in the Tweak tool, just flip the window style, like so:
And voilà, window title bars are dark for all applications:
This is also great when working with IntelliJ IDEA and "Darcula" theme. Linux FTW.
Edit: It seems the above approach does not fully work, at least after rebooting I am seeing the bright colours again. I found a more simple variant now: Copy the original Adwaita theme and patch the Metacity file. I have created a repository with my patched version.

Java GUI compatible with Mac and Windows

I have a project whose GUI was implemented in MAC notebook, when I tried to run it in Windows, there is different GUI and also different buttons' characters. I checked the type of all used fonts, and I am sure they are all installed in windows, Are there any other things I have to consider to work in both platforms ?

In swing there exists a LookAndFeel which by default is set to be platform specific: adapt to the normal platform theme. A nice cross-platform look-and-feel is nimbus.
What the fonts are concerned: look at this where registerFont is called.

You can Swing as the same code you develop will run on Mac, Windows or Linux.
You can install Windows Builder for eclipse. Tute is here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oeswfZz4IW0
(till 5:05 in the video)
A comprehensive guide to Swing and its various components can be found here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rgkWfz7Vy40

Swing Application on Win 8 Platform

I have Swing Application which runs absolutely perfect on Windows XP but fails to give desired Look And Feel on Windows 8(Dimension of Frame and Dialog Changes).I googled a lot but no solution. Will I have to make some changes to my app before deploying on Win 8?

use layouts for your Jframe.
If you use IDE for design means the look and feel will change in another system.
so use layout for your design.
check this link click here
You can use this layout in Windows XP then try it Windows8.
This looks Will not change.

Make the java systray look prettier in Linux

I'm making a Java Application on Linux that uses sytray using Java 6 and Swing. The app looks great (uses the system look and feel) but the systray looks awful. I mean the systray menu looks like old widgedts (Motif?). I wonder if there is a way to set a look and feel or something to make the system tray prettier.
Heres a screenshot of the tray:

Have you tried JXTrayIcon?
I tested this demo from SwingHelper on Ubuntu 10.10 with Compiz and it looks cool.
UPDATE
As 2020, these links are broken and this solution has many drawbacks today. For instance, GNOME3 desktop environments had removed entirely system tray icons and they replaced it with AppIndicator.
Java's (AWT/Swing) System Tray support is broken today. I recommend using this Java library: https://github.com/dorkbox/SystemTray
From the site:
Professional, cross-platform SystemTray support for Swing/AWT, GtkStatusIcon, and AppIndicator on Java 6+. This library provides OS Native menus and Swing/AWT menus, depending on the OS and Desktop Environment and if AutoDetect (the default) is enabled.
For reference, you can found a copy of the original example at here

Swing uses emulated UI widgets. It has a number of styles or themes you can apply. If you would prefer more native results you will need to look for another widget toolkit. You have a few options:
If your needs are very basic, you may be happy with AWT that is the original Java UI toolkit. It uses native widgets, but has very limited library of widgets that it supports.
If you want to go beyond AWT, consider SWT, which is maintained at eclipse.org. It gives you a rich library of widgets, that are implemented natively.

Because Swing use AWT on Systray, if you want great looking on systray. Maybe you can try with SWT :)

I wrote my own library for it. Here is the link:
http://www.2shared.com/file/sQdjb6aG/jtray.html
Usage:
import javax.swing.jtray.*;
JTrayIcon.initSystemTray();
JTrayIcon icon = new JTrayIcon(img, "Tooltip", jpopupmenu);
icon.displayMessage(null, "Title", "Multiline\nsecondline", 3000); // 3 seconds
The library uses a few dirty tricks, so maybe it may not work on any Linux platform as good as in Ubuntu. It should work for Windows and OSX as well.

I haven't tried it myself, but if you're using Java 6 Update 10 or later, can you use the new Nimbus look and feel?:
Using Nimbus LAF
I've heard of tray icons using "JPopupMenu" on Ubuntu, which uses the Nimbus look and feel, so this may be your best bet:
Using JPopupMenu in TrayIcon
From what I've seen, using JPopupMenu alone would be a big improvement - coupled with Nimbus it should be awesome.

A quick & dirty workaround:
Create an undecorated JDialog, add a JPopupMenu for it and make it visible from your mouse listener of your TrayIcon as you want.

Beautifying a SWT application on Mac

SWT is designed to be cross-platform, so it can run on a Mac. The problem is it commits the cardinal sin of Macland - it's UGLY. Toolbars don't look like Mac toolbars, status bars don't look like Mac status bars, etc.
Does anyone have any experience in making an SWT application look more like a Mac application? For example, by making platform-specific JNI calls via the 'OS' class in SWT? If so, how difficult was it?
(This question arises because we are looking at porting an existing SWT app designed to run on Windows)
Thanks

This is usually problem of Swing not SWT (SWT is directly linked to OS/framework provided widgets) - a quote from A gentle introduction to SWT and JFace 2:
SWT is a library that creates a Java
view of the native host operating
system GUI controls. It is host
implementation-dependent. This means
SWT-based applications have several
key characteristics:
1. They look, act, and perform like "native" applications.
2. The widgets provided reflect the widgets (the components and controls) provided on the host operating system.
3. Any special behavior
of the host GUI libraries is reflected
in SWT GUIs.
The pre 3.5 Milestone used to use Carbon framework and now the 3.5+ supports both 32/64bit Cocoa framework 1 so perhaps that has caused you confusion? Or can you be more specific, give us the version you use and some screenshots / sample code to reproduce?
I have been developing java application based on SWT/Eclipse RCP for a while on OSX and have not found and major problem with look&feel (of cause it does not 100% comply the Apple HID 3 as it complies with Eclipse UIG)

The best I can offer is to use either MacWidgets or Quaqua which are both free and in different stages of maturity. The bad news would be that they are both Swing based which is probably not what you want to hear.

You can make your application look and behave like mac application easily. Apple supplies a application called JarBundler with it you can put your menu items up where they belong it will also build a double click able executable, and you can set a icon.
Swing components on Mac OS X looks a lot like their cocoa components, and for OS X you can set some special flags that will make them just like their cocoa counter parts, such as you can set a flag for a JTextField and make it look like cocoa search field.
Also all Macs come with java pre-installed so thats one less worry.

I created support for the Mac OS native toolbar first for Carbon then for the Cocoa version of SWT. At the time I managed to transfer the eclipse perspective switcher to a native toolbar. I had no Obj-C experience so the Cocoa version was more work than the Carbon version, but when all is told, it is not really hard. After supporting the toolbar, I wrote some code to support Alpha Compositing, native image transparency, hardware accelerated effects (CAAnimation). For these, the more difficult part was to understand why some APIs were not even available to be generated by the Eclipse JNI generator. Turned out that the python bridge generator that provided by apple had not been upgraded for the Obj-C 2.0 Property syntax. When I fixed that, I was able to have the SWT JNI Generator spit out the missing APIs. From there, using them was the easy part. You can find some partial pieces of this in the eclipse.org bugzilla server.
I can't say it is always simple, but if you already know Obj-C, then you should be able to do anything you want. A couple days ago I started working on SWT Cocoa again, to add support for ARGB images (as opposed to the limited transparency support offered by ImageData).
Good luck.

I often use the odd "platform queries" to tweak an app. For example, its not really about dressing up an app and more about (for example) making the exit menu option say "Quit" on Mac and "Exit on windows. There are some Mac style guidelines that I can't get round like this but it may help.
See Patform.java for the switching class and ExitAction.java for an example of its use.
Good luck with it :D