Swing Hacks

Don’t Settle for Boring Text Labels #2

Chapter 1, Basic JComponents

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13

HACK

The shadow offsets let you effectively rearrange the letters to create a faded

3D effect (shown in Figure 1-10):

// 3d letters

label.setLeftShadow(5,5,Color.white);

label.setRightShadow(-3,-3, new Color(0xccccff));

label.setForeground(new Color(0x8888ff));

label.setFont(label.getFont( ).deriveFont(140f));

You could expand on this hack by combining it with images and nice gradi-

ents like the Christmas Countdown counter in Figure 1-11. Simple graphi-

cal effects like the ones shown in the

RichJLabel are easy to create with

Swing thanks to the power of Java2D, and they can really make your inter-

faces pop.

Figure 1-10. 3D faded letters

Figure 1-11. Mild emboss effect