Synth Look and Feel

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

According to Sun, goals for synth were:

synth is available beginning with version J2SE 5.0 of Java (see Java version history).

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.

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).

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.

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):

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