[thesuperbigfrog]

Customizing the appearance is one place where Swing's age shows. It is possible to create a custom "Look and Feel", but it is not as easy as HTML / CSS:

https://docs.oracle.com/javase/tutorial/uiswing/lookandfeel/

JavaFX does allow CSS to be used to style it:

https://docs.oracle.com/javase/8/javafx/user-interface-tutor...

[Crinus]

I remember >10 years ago there used to be some "plaf" libraries that provided very easy themeing abilities for Swing that even came with a WYSIWYG tool to create themes. It is a shame something like that never became part of Swing itself and instead you have to create tons of classes just for a theme.

[pjmlp]

Or actually buy them.

http://www.jgoodies.com/ is still in business, to give a possible example.

[Crinus]

This doesn't fix the issue of Swing theming being hard. The fix would be to make it much easier, preferably with a visual editor.

[pjmlp]

You mean like Netbeans Matisse, or more like actually having a designer on the team?

[Crinus]

I was talking about themes, not UI design. Think GTK themes (though not their implementation), not where buttons in a form will go.

[pjmlp]

"How to design a modern Java Swing UI inspiration using Netbeans"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SpKANTHXwmo

As mentioned, having a designer on the team matters.