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<h1>:: User's Guide :: Introduction ::</h1>
The JGoodies Looks distribution provides four Swing look&feel implementations.
This guide explains how to install and configure these looks.
<h2>Before You Start</h2>
To use the JGoodies look&feels add <tt>looks-x.x.x.jar</tt> to your user classpath.<br>
<b>Do not put the jar into the extension directory!</b>
<a href="../faq.html#1.7">Learn why...</a>
<p>
As an alternative, you can import the sources or extract the class files
from the JAR for inclusion in one of your application JARs.
<h2>Class References vs. Name References</h2>
There are two ways to work with the JGoodies l&f and optional settings:
<p>
1) You refer to JGoodies classes.
This is compile-time safe and less error-prone.
But it requires to import JGoodies classes; and so this can be used
only if you can ensure that the JGoodies Looks are in the classpath at runtime.
<p>2) You can use names/strings.
If you are not sure whether the JGoodies Looks will be available at
runtime, you can choose the l&f and options using names.
<h2>UIManager vs. JGoodies Classes</h2>
You can either specify JGoodies options via the <tt>UIManager</tt> class
or via JGoodies classes, most noticably the <tt>Options</tt> class.
<p>
You can put values for specific keys in the UIManager.
This decouples your application code from the JGoodies implementations,
and so avoids the need to import JGoodies classes in your code.
This is the recommended way, if you cannot (easily) modify your code,
or if you are not allowed to import third party libraries.
<p>
Calling the JGoodies methods enables static compiler checks
and will be the preferred way to set options, if you have
full control over your application code.
<h2>Global vs. Look-Specific Settings</h2>
The JGoodies Windows L&F and the JGoodies Plastic L&F
introduce and share several optional settings. You can find
all global options in class <tt>com.jgoodies.looks.Options</tt>,
and look-specific settings in the particular LookAndFeel
subclasses: <tt>WindowsLookAndFeel</tt>, <tt>PlasticLookAndFeel</tt>,
<tt>Plastic3DLookAndFeel</tt> and <tt>PlasticXPLookAndFeel</tt>.
<h2>Optional Settings</h2>
The JGoodies l&fs introduce several optional l&f properties
and <tt>JComponent</tt> client properties that enable you to tweak your
application's visual appearance. You can find keys and/or accessors
to this optional behavior in class <tt>com.jgoodies.looks.Options</tt>.
<p>The Simple Looks Demo uses several of these settings.
Beyond that, the JGoodies Looks Demo let's you play around with these options.
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