Making a nice looking GUI???

[Mr U]

Hello, I'm making a java applet and right now it just looks very very boring and lifeless,
Mine looks like this


compared to another program which looks like this


My question, anyone have any help on how I make something nicer looking?

something made in photoshop, http://i.imgur.com/lngA3.png

[Sayco]

May I suggest using NetBeans, its known for it's awesome GUI builder.

[Mr U]

May I suggest using NetBeans, its known for it's awesome GUI builder.

I've never used netbeans I'm using JPanel and JButton's and ECT. Can my code convert easy?

[doWhile]

FWIW, if you are new to Swing programming, I would not recommend using a GUI builder. They may facilitate positioning and component usage, but if you don't understand what is going on 'under the hood' it can make it extremely difficult to perform custom modifications, read other people's code, or even maintain your own code.

Back to your original question, what have you tried? What are you familiar with? A few topics to research:

• JComponent Colors (setting background/foreground)
• Borders (Bevel, line, empty borders all help customize the appearance of a JComponent)
• Layout Managers (positioning components and nesting layouts for better positioning)
• ImageIcon/JLabel to display icons
• Different JComponents (JTabbedPane, JSplitPane, JTable, JList, JTree, etc...)