Hello,

I've refreshed the JGoodies Looks, a bundle that consists
of a Windows look&feel and the Plastic look&feel family.
It makes your Swing applications and applets look better.
The JGoodies l&fs have been optimized for readability,
precise micro-design and usability. And they simplify the
multi-platform support by using similar widget dimensions.
Anyway, many people have reviewed them as elegant.

The 1.2 release requires Java 1.4 or later and fixes bugs.
See file RELEASE-NOTES.html for details.

There's an open issue with fonts in non-western environments.
Basically, many Plastic themes (not the Plastic l&fs) use a
hard coded font. This will lead to unreadable Chinese characters.
A workaround is described in the Issue #10 (see below).
The desire for a timely rollout of the many improvements
contained in this version constrained the amount of work that
I could do. And so I've decided to ship 1.2 now and
overhaul font management in an soon-to-be-released version 1.3.

I've refreshed the JGoodies Forms Demo too. This Demo helps you
compare the Java core l&fs with the JGoodies Windows and
Plastic looks in your Java and OS environment. I've recently added
an edition for the Mac OS X and have fine tuned several panels
for the Mac; however, the Looks Demo is intended to demonstrate
inconsistencies and problems in the core look&feels.

I provide two web pages full of screenshots of the Looks Demo
in different configurations. These demonstrate several issues
with inconsistent fonts, font sizes, widget dimensions, insets,
and font baseline alignment. See the references below.

Note: Due to incompatible class changes it is recommended
to not place the Looks jars in the Java extension directory!

Many thanks to the customers of the JGoodies Swing Suite
and to Sun's Java Desktop team. It is only with their money
that I can offer and maintain this library for free.
I encourage professional Looks users to help me finance
my Java desktop activities by licensing the commercial
JGoodies Swing Suite that helps you build professional
and rich Swing clients effectively.

I hope the JGoodies Looks help you improve the readability,
legibility and elegance of your multi-platform screen design.

Best regards,
Karsten Lentzsch

References
Project Home - https://looks.dev.java.net/

Downloads - https://looks.dev.java.net/ProjectDocumentList

Demo Editions -
https://looks.dev.java.net/servlets/ProjectDocumentList?folderID=624

Comparison Screenshots - http://www.JGoodies.com/freeware/looks/align14.html

JGoodies Swing Suite - http://www.JGoodies.com/products/index.html

Non-Western Fonts - https://looks.dev.java.net/issues/show_bug.cgi?id=10