How do I use anti-aliased fonts in Java?

Anti-aliasing is a graphical technique used to smooth jagged edges. Although it takes longer to draw things when anti-aliasing is used, the result is usually well worth the extra processing power required. Anti-aliasing is especially useful with text — anti-aliased fonts are much cleaner, better-looking, and more readable.

In Java, there are two ways to enable font anti-aliasing with Swing. Prior to Java 1.5, the simplest way to enable anti-aliasing of fonts is to use the SmoothMetal look-and-feel. SmoothMetal adds anti-aliasing support to the standard look-and-feels that ship with Java. A few changes to your application might be required, but it’s mostly transparent.

From Java 1.5 and on, however, it’s even simpler. All you do is set a system property, swing.aatext, to ‘true’ at the start of your application. Here’s some sample code that shows how it’s done:

    public static void start() {
        java.awt.EventQueue.invokeLater(new Runnable() {
            public void run() {
                System.setProperty( “swing.aatext”, “true” );

                try {
                    UIManager.setLookAndFeel(
                           UIManager.getSystemLookAndFeelClassName());
                }
                catch( Throwable e ){
                    // oops
                }

                new MyFrame( app, options ).setVisible( true );
            }
        });
    }

Just be sure to set the swing.aatext property before any Swing calls are made.

Comments

Subscribe without commenting
E-Mail:

• 
  

• Recent Questions

  • How do I use PHP in .html files?
  • How do I interact with Google AdSense support?
  • How do I use anti-aliased fonts in Java?
  • How can I avoid being banned from AdSense?
  • How do I convert a Microsoft Word document to a PDF file?

• Categories

  • AdSense
  • Programming
  • Publishing
  • Web

• Archives

  • February 2008
  • January 2008
  • December 2007