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> Date: Thu, 20 Oct 2005 11:25:45 -0400 > From: Thomas Wolf <twolf@ithaka.org> > To: nbui@netbeans.org > Subject: [nbui] Can we add an option to set overall colors in NB 5? > > ... > > Will this change? More importantly to me, how do I change those window > background colors? Do I still have to delve into some arcane > configuration file? > > Am I the only one who can't stand white? :-) > No you're not. After using newer aqua L&F for a while I get eye-strain. My C++ compiler engineer friend Lawrence next-door is even more sensitive so he had trouble with even the metal L&F. That's one of his must-fixes before he even tries an NB-based IDE. While I could sympathise with Lawrence I hadn't "felt" the strain myself. What set me over the edge interestingly enough wasn't the Backgrounds since in metal L&F backgrounds are also white, but the edges becoming so bright. Now _everything_ is bright. because of this border effect I'm curious to know whether being able to turn down the BG's will help or just cause othe rproblems ... I remembere reading an article on the early IBM PC monitor where they were proud of how the monitor graded from dark sreen to lighter plastic shell to lightest outer plastic shell to provide visual transition from supposedly brighter surroundings to the darker inner screen. I know of a computer guy who is albino. The lack of pigmentation extends into the eye so their eye, instead of being optically black like cameras and telescopes is white. This is one way their vision gets affected. Dimming things helps. I raised this on nbui a while a go with the mind to verify my "theory" that this whitening happens because of the shift to laptops and more work being done in high-ambient-light environments. In general if your surroundings are brighter your iris contracts and then the ultra-bright IDE shouldn't cause as much eye-strain. But I'd still rather have controls on the IDE than to have to come out of my "cave".
There are some existing ways you can do this: Theme support (though barely supported these days since it's only really applicable to Metal L&F) can do this for Metal L&F. The bottom line is this is going to be plain impossible on some look and feels. For L&Fs that rely on colors stored in UIManager.getDefault(), NetBeans code can change them - this is what theme support does - and one of the reasons it's no longer really supported is that it can only really work on Metal L&F. Synth based look and feels (GTK & I believe Mustang's Windows L&F) use JNI + native painting to paint widgets - the IDE doesn't have much chance of helping here - the code doing the painting is not Java. As a case in point, we cannot support --fontsize either on GTK L&F (and presumably the newer Windows L&F) - because we cannot control the fonts. There are plenty of options nonetheless, just not ones that NetBeans can affect, for the most part: - Run Metal L&F and use an XML theme file - it should still work - Run Windows or GTK L&F and set the OS-wide theme to something you like - anywhere NetBeans ignores this is a bug (though not necessarily a fixable bug - there will be cases of clashes, as custom widgets do not, of course, use native painting - a general problem of Synth based look and feels is that they make no provision whatsoever for how to handle custom widgets - the Swing team *has* made some basic UIManager key/value pairs like UIManager.getColor("control") try to do something reasonable where that information is available - but it is not guaranteed to be available in the case of native painting, and all controls have to try to do something reasonable in the absence of such information). Generally all custom NB widgets take their values from UIManager.getColor() with fallbacks for null, so if enough basic information is available, they should usually do something reasonable - Run with one of the other L&Fs out there with a dark theme - http://substance.dev.java.net looks promising and has some dark themes, and there is a project to even do UI delegates for NetBeans custom controls Sorry if that's not the answer you're looking for, but the sands are shifting as to how, and whether, Swing applications have any control over their appearance - and generally in the direction of less control. Alas, I suspect this issue will have to be closed as wontfix - there simply isn't anything you can do to solve this problem on a growing number of platforms.
Perhaps this is unfixable but ... - What happens under KDE? - Considering that the question is a FAQ I'd like to see a proper section in the documentation or somewhere dedicated to this. - An update to the Theme control. Last time I tried it it wasn't working. Could you please spiff it up, verify it and repost in this IZ where one can get the spec for themes? - Is there an analogous FAQ (with a comprehensive answer) on the java web site? - I'm not buying the "wherever the tide Swings" argument anymore. As the main thick-client platform for Java (am I exaggerating here?) NB is the front of the user experience. If you get enough feedback regarding this issue, isn't it NB's obligation to work with Swing and stem the tide?
Reassigining to "core".
I came across similar enhancement which talked about overall background color and overall font, can't find the number now, but it was many many years old. Implementation would be tricky and not working on all L&Fs, but we may try following: - have an option in Options/Misc/Appearance which will try to set proper color key in UIManager and trigger repaint. - it would be implementable only for some L&Fs such as Metal, Nimbus (!*NOT* Nimbus GTK theme!), Windows. - AFAIK it is not implementable for GTK L&F (default on Linux with gnome, Solaris) and for Aqua L&F (Mac) For L&Fs which we can't support, color option should be disabled with tooltip which explains that colors are completely driven by OS
Dup of https://netbeans.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=151069 ?