Netbeans’ GUI builder is great. It’s one of the essential features that made me drop eclipse.
But designing accurate GUIs can be a pain in the arse. Especially, when you use the GUI builder with a certain preview Look and Feel (e.g. GTK+) but you application later runs with a completely different L’n’F (e.g. Nimbus). It’s almost certain, that your design will look rather ugly. Unless you want to design your GUI manually (which isn’t a bad idea, btw.), you have to make sure, your design preview and application match.
While changing the L’n’F in your application is quite simple, changing Netbeans’ L’n’F (and therefore the GUI builder’s L’n’F ) is rather tricky. The easiest way is probaly the --laf
flag:
$ netbeans --laf Nimbus
If you want to start Netbeans in Nimbus-mode per default, just add --laf Nimbus
to netbeans_default_options
in ~/.netbeans/6.5/etc/netbeans.conf
.
If the file doesn’t yet exists
mkdir -p ~/.netbeans/6.5/etc/ echo netbeans_default_options=\"--laf Nimbus\" >> ~/.netbeans/6.5/etc/netbeans.conf