Question

I want to change the appearance of a Matlab pushbutton with Java. For it, I use the application Findjobj. However, because of I do not know Java, I have troubles to use Java classes properly that I need to get my button has rounded corners. Based on the information found here), I have tried to set up the button with the class BorderFactory:

hButton = uicontrol('string','click me!');
jButton = findjobj(hButton);
jButton.setCursor(java.awt.Cursor(java.awt.Cursor.HAND_CURSOR));
jButton.setBorder(BorderFactory.createLineBorder(red,1,true));

But this does not work. I got the following error message:

??? Undefined function or variable 'red'.

    Error in ==> de at 4
    jButton.setBorder(BorderFactory.createLineBorder(red,1,true));

EDIT: I realize I forgot to include the Java classes for color and LineBorder. After fixing it, the code looks like this:

import java.awt.Color;
import javax.swing.border.LineBorder;
hButton = uicontrol('Style','pushbutton','String','click me!',...
    'Units','normalized','Position',[0.156 0.64 0.688 0.1],'FontSize',9,...
    'ForegroundColor','w','BackgroundColor','k');
jButton = findjobj(hButton);
jButton.setCursor(java.awt.Cursor(java.awt.Cursor.HAND_CURSOR));
jButton.setBorder(LineBorder(Color.white,5,true));

However, the result still be unpleased for me. Here is the final appearance. I can get the corners to be rounded.

Answer 1

If you want rounded buttons, you’ll have to use a Look & Feel whose button UI delegate draws rounded buttons. Examples include com.apple.laf.AquaButtonUI, illustrated here, and javax.swing.plaf.synth.SynthLookAndFeel, shown here. You can also implement your own ButtonUI and Border, as shown here, but you’ll have decide if it’s worth the effort.

Addendum: Looking at this related Matlab question and the relevant Swing tutorial, note that “If you are going to set the L&F, you should do it as the very first step in your application.”