GTK+, SkinLF or something else

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Nikolaos Giannopoulos - 09 Jul 2003 17:58 GMT

I have developed a Swing app that will run under JRE 1.4.2 and am new to
application skinning.

Can anyone provide pros and cons between GTK+ and SkinLF (or any other
L&F for that matter)?

Any comments on skinning for cross-platform apps i.e. we are using Metal
L&F as it keeps our apps L&F consistent accross platforms. Any
(non-obvious) pros and cons here?

We are tossing around the idea of simply providing an enhanced form of
Metal L&F i.e. with gradient coloring and some other effects. Is GTK+,
SkinLF or something else the best way to go?

Any usefull resources? Tutorials?

Other comments????

Thanks,

--Nikolaos

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Karsten Lentzsch - 09 Jul 2003 18:51 GMT

> (...)
> We are tossing around the idea of simply providing
> an enhanced form of Metal L&F i.e. with gradient coloring
> and some other effects. Is GTK+, SkinLF or something else
> the best way to go?

I've recently open sourced my JGoodies Plastic l&f family.
It enhances and corrects the Metal l&f and focuses on
readability, legibility, performance, precise micro design
and simplified multi-platform support.
You can download the library plus sources and demo from
http://looks.dev.java.net/servlets/ProjectDocumentList
And you can find tools and demos using this l&f at
http://www.jgoodies.com/freeware/

Another professional cross-platform look&feel is the
Alloy l&f provided by Incors, see www.incors.com.

I plan to write about the Plastic l&fs and how to use
them effectively at www.JavaDesktop.org. Currently
you can find a quickstart document at
www.jgoodies.com/freeware/looks/quickstart.html.

Hope this helps,
--
Karsten Lentzsch
www.JGoodies.com - Java User Interface Design

Reply to this Message

Nikolaos Giannopoulos - 09 Jul 2003 19:59 GMT

> I've recently open sourced my JGoodies Plastic l&f family.
> It enhances and corrects the Metal l&f and focuses on
[quoted text clipped - 4 lines]
> And you can find tools and demos using this l&f at
> http://www.jgoodies.com/freeware/

Karsten,

(1) Does your product support 1.4.2? It does say 1.3.1 or later but ya
never know....

(2) I noticed that your product is licensed using the BSD license.

In a nutshell what are the ramifications of using your product as the
L&F for a product that will be sold commercially? i.e. some other open
source licenses like LGPL force their license on products that use them
(thus making those products open source - which doesn't work for us
unfortunately).

I don't know much about the BSD license other than the couple paragraphs
that I read following a link and it seems like its targeted towards
freeware type products. Is this the case?

Other comments?

--Nikolaos

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Karsten Lentzsch - 09 Jul 2003 20:26 GMT

> (1) Does your product support 1.4.2? It does say 1.3.1
> or later but ya never know....

It supports 1.3 or later, including 1.4.2.

> (...) In a nutshell what are the ramifications of using
> your product as the L&F for a product that will be sold
> commercially?

Just comply with the BSD license term for source
or binary distribution. Basically you must retain
the copyright notice and the disclaimer I provide.
The BSD license does not require your program
to be free or open source or no-charge, or so.

> I don't know much about the BSD license other than
> the couple paragraphs that I read following a link
> and it seems like its targeted towards freeware type
> products. Is this the case?

The BSD license is just a couple of paragraphs;
that's what makes it so attractive: humans can read it.
It makes my software freeware, but doesn't care
about yours.

For details, you may check back the license again:
http://www.opensource.org/licenses/bsd-license.html

Best regards,
--
Karsten Lentzsch
www.JGoodies.com - Java User Interface Design

Reply to this Message

Nikolaos Giannopoulos - 09 Jul 2003 22:29 GMT

>
>
> The BSD license is just a couple of paragraphs;
> that's what makes it so attractive: humans can read it.

I was impressed by that as well but kept wondering if there was more to
the license - e.g. was a page missing or something ;-) I'm glad to see
there isn't.

> It makes my software freeware, but doesn't care
> about yours.

Which is a good thing when trying to have a 3rd party product coupled to
a commercial product. Most of the time licenses make our use of 3rd
party products impossible.

> For details, you may check back the license again:
> http://www.opensource.org/licenses/bsd-license.html

Yup, got it. Thanks.

--Nikolaos

Reply to this Message

Jon A. Cruz - 10 Jul 2003 05:56 GMT

> In a nutshell what are the ramifications of using your product as the
> L&F for a product that will be sold commercially? i.e. some other open
> source licenses like LGPL force their license on products that use them
> (thus making those products open source - which doesn't work for us
> unfortunately).

Actually, the LGPL does not. Things under it can be freely used by other
software, including commercial. The GPL is the more stringent one.

That's one reason why I like GTK+ over Qt.

Anyway...

For info...

http://www.opensource.org/licenses/

Reply to this Message

Nikolaos Giannopoulos - 10 Jul 2003 21:13 GMT

>> In a nutshell what are the ramifications of using your product as the
>> L&F for a product that will be sold commercially? i.e. some other
[quoted text clipped - 4 lines]
> Actually, the LGPL does not. Things under it can be freely used by other
> software, including commercial. The GPL is the more stringent one.

Right. My apologies, I got it backwards -

LPGL (the last 'L' being for 'Lesser' in terms of restrictions).

Thanks,

--Nikolaos

Reply to this Message

Jon A. Cruz - 10 Jul 2003 21:23 GMT

> Right. My apologies, I got it backwards -
>
> LPGL (the last 'L' being for 'Lesser' in terms of restrictions).

Or 'L' being for 'Library' for us "old-timers" :-)

Reply to this Message

IchBin - 16 Mar 2006 06:48 GMT

>> In a nutshell what are the ramifications of using your product as the
>> L&F for a product that will be sold commercially? i.e. some other
[quoted text clipped - 12 lines]
>
> http://www.opensource.org/licenses/

Another nice one that does not have the same QT license problem is
wxWidgets. The wxWindows Licence is essentially the L-GPL (Library
General Public Licence), with an exception stating that derived works in
binary form may be distributed on the user's own terms. This is a
solution that satisfies those who wish to produce GPL'ed software using
wxWidgets, and also those producing proprietary software.

It use to be called wxWindows but had to rename because Microsoft had a
problem with that name even though it had been around for some time, 1992.

Its an open source C++ GUI framework.

http://www.wxwidgets.org

Signature

Thanks in Advance...
IchBin, Pocono Lake, Pa, USA
http://weconsultants.servebeer.com/JHackerAppManager
__________________________________________________________________________

'If there is one, Knowledge is the "Fountain of Youth"'
-William E. Taylor, Regular Guy (1952-)

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Roedy Green - 09 Jul 2003 21:22 GMT

>And you can find tools and demos using this l&f at
>http://www.jgoodies.com/freeware/

I ran the JWS version of your demo. Your JGoodies layouts have a font
problem on my machine. The letters are scrunched together. I will
send you screenshots by email.

The other odd thing, is when I choose different colours, sometimes the
buttons revert to ordinary rectangles, instead of those Euro-Mercedes
gently rounded ones.

--
Canadian Mind Products, Roedy Green.
Coaching, problem solving, economical contract programming.
See http://mindprod.com/jgloss/jgloss.html for The Java Glossary.

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Jon A. Cruz - 10 Jul 2003 04:51 GMT

> Any comments on skinning for cross-platform apps i.e. we are using Metal
> L&F as it keeps our apps L&F consistent accross platforms. Any
> (non-obvious) pros and cons here?

Just a minor point...

In general "skinning" means something different to other computer users.
Instead of the LookAndFeel changes that Swing in Java gives, "Skins"
usually deal with more.

"Skins" don't just change the Look and Feel of the components as they
are, they change where they are and how they work.

GQmpeg is one example of these 'skinnable' programs.

http://gqmpeg.sourceforge.net/mpeg-skin1.html

Reply to this Message

Nikolaos Giannopoulos - 10 Jul 2003 18:07 GMT

> Just a minor point...
>
[quoted text clipped - 8 lines]
>
> http://gqmpeg.sourceforge.net/mpeg-skin1.html

Your right. Thanks for the clarification.

--Nikolaos

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GTK+, SkinLF or something else

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