JavaTM 2 Platform
Standard Ed. 5.0

Package javax.swing.plaf.synth

Synth is a skinnable look and feel in which all painting is delegated.

See:
          Description

Interface Summary
SynthConstants Constants used by Synth.
 

Class Summary
ColorType A typesafe enumeration of colors that can be fetched from a style.
Region A distinct rendering area of a Swing component.
SynthContext An immutable transient object containing contextual information about a Region.
SynthGraphicsUtils Wrapper for primitive graphics calls.
SynthLookAndFeel SynthLookAndFeel provides the basis for creating a customized look and feel.
SynthPainter SynthPainter is used for painting portions of JComponents.
SynthStyle SynthStyle is a set of style properties.
SynthStyleFactory Factory used for obtaining SynthStyles.
 

Package javax.swing.plaf.synth Description

Synth is a skinnable look and feel in which all painting is delegated. Synth does not provide a default look. In order to use Synth you need to specify a file, or provide a SynthStyleFactory. Both configuration options require an understanding of the synth architecture, which is described below, as well as an understanding of Swing's architecture.

Synth

Each ComponentUI implementation in Synth associates itself with one SynthStyle per Region, most Components only have one Region and therefor only one SynthStyle. SynthStyle is used to access all style related properties: fonts, colors and other Component properties. In addition SynthStyles are used to obtain SynthPainters for painting the background, border, focus and other portions of a Component. The ComponentUIs obtain SynthStyles from a SynthStyleFactory. A SynthStyleFactory can be provided directly by way of SynthLookAndFeel.setStyleFactory(javax.swing.plaf.synth.SynthStyleFactory), or indirectly by way of SynthLookAndFeel.load(java.io.InputStream, java.lang.Class). The following example uses the SynthLookAndFeel.load() method to configure a SynthLookAndFeel and sets it as the current look and feel:

  SynthLookAndFeel laf = new SynthLookAndFeel();
  laf.load(MyClass.class.getResourceAsStream("laf.xml"), MyClass.class);
  UIManager.setLookAndFeel(laf);
      

Many JComponents are broken down into smaller pieces and identified by the type safe enumeration in Region. For example, a JTabbedPane consists of a Region for the JTabbedPane (Region.TABBED_PANE), the content area (Region.TABBED_PANE_CONTENT), the area behind the tabs (Region.TABBED_PANE_TAB_AREA), and the tabs (Region.TABBED_PANE_TAB). Each Region of each JComponent will have a SynthStyle. This allows you to customize individual pieces of each region of each JComponent.

Many of the Synth methods take a SynthContext. This is used to provide information about the current Component and includes: the SynthStyle associated with the current Region, the state of the Component as a bitmask (refer to SynthConstants for the valid states), and a Region identifying the portion of the Component being painted.

All text rendering by non-JTextComponents is delegated to a SynthGraphicsUtils, which is obtained using the SynthStyle method SynthStyle.getGraphicsUtils(javax.swing.plaf.synth.SynthContext). You can customize text rendering by supplying your own SynthGraphicsUtils.

Unless otherwise specified null is not a legal value to any of the methods defined in the synth package and if passed in will result in a NullPointerException.


JavaTM 2 Platform
Standard Ed. 5.0

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For further API reference and developer documentation, see Java 2 SDK SE Developer Documentation. That documentation contains more detailed, developer-targeted descriptions, with conceptual overviews, definitions of terms, workarounds, and working code examples.

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