14. Swing Look and Feel

Swing programs will start up in their own native look and feel rather than the Windows, Motif or Mac style.

It is best to set the OS-specific system look and feel.

The idea is to use UIManager.setLookAndFeel method.

For complete example see A3/application/SwingMain.java ( download ) sample program.

// Setting OS-specific look and feel:
private static void setSystemLookFeel()
{
    // Force GUI to come up in the OS-specific look and feel
    String laf = UIManager.getSystemLookAndFeelClassName();
    try
    {
        UIManager.setLookAndFeel(laf);
    }
    catch (UnsupportedLookAndFeelException exc )
    {
        System.err.println("Unsupported: " + laf);
    }
    catch (Exception exc)
    {
        System.err.println("Error loading " + laf);
    }
}