1. Default is "Java LAF" (or "Metal"), a custom look and feel similar to the Windows look.

2. Motif look available on all platforms. Windows and Mac looks are only available on their native platforms.

• It is technically easy to work around this restriction, but it is not currently legal to distribute/use applications that do this.

3. You can change look at runtime.

• Sounds cool, but rarely used in real life.
• Normal place to set look is in constructor of top-level JFrame (or main), or in init in a JApplet.

4. You can get AWT behavior of using native look.

• Call the getSystemLookAndFeelClassName method of UIManager, and pass result to UIManager.setLookAndFeel.
• Since setLookAndFeel throws an exception, this is a bit inconvenient, and you might want to make a static method in a utility class called "setNativeLookAndFeel". See example below in WindowUtilities.java.

5. Changing the Look and Feel: Examples

WindowUtilities.java (Download source code)

import javax.swing.*;
import java.awt.*;

public class WindowUtilities {
  public static void setNativeLookAndFeel() {
    try {
      UIManager.setLookAndFeel(UIManager.getSystemLookAndFeelClassName());
    } catch(Exception e) {
      System.out.println("Error setting native LAF: " + e);
    }
  }

  public static void setJavaLookAndFeel() {
    try {
      UIManager.setLookAndFeel(UIManager.getCrossPlatformLookAndFeelClassName());
    } catch(Exception e) {
      System.out.println("Error setting Java LAF: " + e);
    }
  }

   public static void setMotifLookAndFeel() {
    try {
      UIManager.setLookAndFeel("com.sun.java.swing.plaf.motif.MotifLookAndFeel");
    } catch(Exception e) {
      System.out.println("Error setting Motif LAF: " + e);
    }
  }

  ...

}

6. Example: Windows LAF (Sun SwingSet Demo)

7. Example: Motif LAF (Sun SwingSet Demo)

8. Example: Java (Metal) LAF (Sun SwingSet Demo)