L&F comparison - Eclipse vs. Netbeans vs. my apps

[kjkrum]

I'm using a dark GTK+ theme, and some Java apps look good, but others look terrible. This image shows menus in Eclipse and NetBeans. Notice how in the NetBeans screenshot, disabled menu items are brighter instead of darker, and the text appears doubled. When I use the system L&F in my own applications, they look like NetBeans.

I've read that this is a common problem with the GTK+ L&F, but I haven't found any solutions. I'd like to know what Eclipse is doing to make itself look so good, but I'm reluctant to start digging through the Eclipse source without even knowing what I'm looking for. Does it have its own custom L&F? Would it be pretty easy to rip it out and use it in my own programs, provided the license is compatible?

[DarrylBurke]

I think what's important is how the app looks when run from a command line or an executable jar, and whether the LaF is OS-independent.

Did you verify that no Exception is thrown when setting the LaF?

db

[kjkrum]

My question may not have been clear. It's not that my apps look different when run in Eclipse. It's that Eclipse itself looks different from my apps, and from other apps like NetBeans. That makes me think that Eclipse is not using the native L&F, although it's definitely borrowing things like colors and the appearance of scrollbars from it. I want to make my apps look as good as Eclipse.

It occurred to me that some parts of Eclipse look suspiciously like the native apps on my system. Maybe it's actually a native app that embeds a JVM, like OpenOffice/LibreOffice...

Anyway, I learned about Nimbus, so I'm using that for now, with Metal as the fallback.

[DarrylBurke]

AFAIK Eclipse is built on SWT. Not Swing.

db

[kjkrum]

Ohhh... yeah, that would make sense. I always forget that SWT exists.

I noticed that another Java app I use, Areca Backup, looks like Eclipse. Its code base is much smaller, so maybe I'll dig into that and see what it's doing.