<Swing Dev> Swing Actions + Icons + Menus

Alexander Potochkin Alexander.Potochkin at Sun.COM
Tue Jun 26 10:22:14 UTC 2007


Hello swing-dev

Recently we discussed this blog
http://cafe.elharo.com/java/menu-icons-considered-ugly/

and didn't come to a unified conclusion

There were two opposite opinion about actions + icons + menus

===== First opinion =====

The statement "Menu Icons Considered Ugly"
is a personal opinion and not a common belief

Our native Look and Feels - Windows and GTK
support icons in menus just like respective OS's do

If icons in menus are not common in MacOs,
Apple can introduce a UI property in their native MacOs Look and Feel
to switch off the icons for menus

If someone just doesn't like the icons in the menus
there is a clear solution:

menuItem.setIcon(null); //arbitrarily chose not to use icon


===== Second opinion =====

We should add a new functionality to the Swing Actoins
to make it possible to switch the icons off for a menuItem
and show the icon for a button with the same Action

The new RFE is filed
http://bugs.sun.com/bugdatabase/view_bug.do?bug_id=6572890


What do you guys think about that ?

Thanks
alexp





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