Allow select Widget Style default

[jEsuSdA]

Hi!
I just discovered Pixelitor and I think it has a great potential for newbies. Very good job!

But I have some suggestions. The first one is not to force widget style and let users setting the system one.

Pixelitor shows the "aqua" style and does not integrate very well with other desktop and apps. I expected to let Java to use my default settings.

Could you add a command line or preferences option to disable the forced widget style and let Pixelitor using the environment defined one?

Thanks a lot.

[lbalazscs]

Pixelitor currently uses the Java Swing "look and feel" called "Nimbus".

In principle it would be possible to support multiple look and feels, and in fact the first versions of Pixelitor (10 years ago...) had this, but then it turned out that some custom widgets have problems, and I turned this feature off. As an illustration, the following screenshot shows how Pixelitor would look like with the "Windows System" look and feel.

So it's not enough to simply enable other look and feels, but it is also necessary to fix these problems. Actually recently I started thinking about a dark theme, but a decent dark theme is not possible with Nimbus, so this feature is definitely something that could happen, but probably not very soon, since all the related problems also have to be solved first.

[jEsuSdA]

I understand.
But, I mean not to INCLUDE new themes but allow using DEFAULT java environment theme instead of forcing one.

Here an example of another JAVA app running on my GNU/Linux XFCE desktop:

As you can see, it detects the GTK environment and loads the default GTK java widgets and integrates very well with the other apps.
Here the same app with a native one:

It is not perfect (for example java does not detect the correct fonts size ), but the font rendering is soft and the widgets and buttons are very good looking.

Compare with this:

The fonts, the buttons and the background are totally different.

Please, consider to add some tweak to allow lauch Pixelitor without forcing any theme (a commandline option should be valid).

Thanks a lot!!

[lbalazscs]

Yes, I understood you the first time. The Nimbus theme is forced because right now Pixelitor doesn't work perfectly with other themes (as you can see in my screenshot). I know that there are other Java apps (with simpler GUIs) that work with any theme, but Pixelitor has some advanced custom widgets, which cause problems.

BTW, if you can build your own Pixelitor (I don't know if you built your jar, or you simply edited the jar with a zip editor), you can go to the src/main/java/pixelitor/Pixelitor.java file, delete the lines

            UIManager.setLookAndFeel(
                    "javax.swing.plaf.nimbus.NimbusLookAndFeel");

and add instead here the line

UIManager.setLookAndFeel(UIManager.getSystemLookAndFeelClassName());

But something like this will be part of the "official release" only after I fixed the problems shown in my screenshot

[jEsuSdA]

@lbalazscs, How can I build Pixelitor from sources?
Could you provide me a Pixelitor built with this por testing purposes?
Thanks a lot!

[lbalazscs]

I updated the main GitHub page (https://github.com/lbalazscs/Pixelitor) so that it contains instructions for building Pixelitor from the command line. Let me know if you are having any difficulty!

[jEsuSdA]

Error while building:

[INFO] Tests run: 13, Failures: 0, Errors: 0, Skipped: 0, Time elapsed: 0.02 s - in pixelitor.transform.TransformHelperTest
[INFO] Running pixelitor.tools.transform.TransformBoxTest
[ERROR] Tests run: 8, Failures: 2, Errors: 0, Skipped: 0, Time elapsed: 0.08 s <<< FAILURE! - in pixelitor.tools.transform.TransformBoxTest
[ERROR] pixelitor.tools.transform.TransformBoxTest.cursorAfterTurnedInsideOut  Time elapsed: 0.016 s  <<< FAILURE!
java.lang.AssertionError: expected 'Southwest Resize Cursor', found 'Cursor de Cambio de Tamaño Suroeste'
	at pixelitor.tools.transform.TransformBoxTest.cursorAfterTurnedInsideOut(TransformBoxTest.java:276)

[ERROR] pixelitor.tools.transform.TransformBoxTest.pureRotation  Time elapsed: 0.005 s  <<< FAILURE!
java.lang.AssertionError: expected 'Northwest Resize Cursor', found 'Cursor de Cambio de Tamaño Noroeste'
	at pixelitor.tools.transform.TransformBoxTest.pureRotation(TransformBoxTest.java:220)

[lbalazscs]

It seems that the tests are also assuming English language... I will investigate this, but for now as a workaround you can tell Maven to skip the tests by running mvn -Dmaven.test.skip=true clean package (instead of mvn clean package)

Skipping the tests is good anyway, as long as you don't make code changes, because it saves some time. (Changing the properties files can't create bugs.)

[lbalazscs]

I pushed a change (f442d63) to GitHub, now the tests should also run fine with the latest version.

[jEsuSdA]

Thanks a lot, @lbalazscs !!!

I was able build the project. Look at this:

It looks like so beautiful, but, sadly, as you mention before, there are some interface issues.
But I'm very happy, cause the result is very good looking. It will be great when you could solve the issues and environment theme could be used.

Thanks a lot for your job!!

P.D.: I saw your message about translations. I try to send you a translation as soon I can. ;)

[lbalazscs]

I'm glad you like it :)
I checked in a new version, where you can set the theme (and the language) from the preferences. (The interface issues are still unsolved, but I am optimistic)

[jEsuSdA]

It works awesome!
Thanks a lot, @lbalazscs ! ;)

[lbalazscs]

The just released Pixelitor 4.3.0 can select the "System" theme if "experimental" settings are enabled (both settings are in Preferences)
I'm closing this issue, possible problems with the system theme should the reported in a new, different issue.