Customize Netbeans Platform Splash Screen and About Dialog

October 18th, 2007 | by Tonny Kohar |

During development of our product Sketsa SVG Editor, we need to customize the default Netbeans Platform About Dialog and splash screen as part our product branding.

Nb Platform default about dialog      Nb Platform custom about dialog

Note: this is tested on Netbeans IDE 6-beta1


Customize the Splash Screen

Create the image using any image editor application to suit your particular branding. If you want to have single image for both splash and about dialog, please make sure the image have dimension 259×252 px, so it will fit nicely with the available image space in the about dialog.

Note: the about dialog will automatically use the splash screen image, if it is not supplied with its own image to use.

Update: On Netbeans 6 beta2, it no longer share the splash and about image, so you need to have two files ready: splash.gif and about.png

Now on the project suite node right click and choose properties, and go to Build-Splash Screen section. Click the browse and select your desired image for the splash screen.

In this dialog you may also customize the progress bar and running text color, size, and position


Customize the About Dialog

On the about dialog you may customize the copyright info using the following methods. In the project suite (under File, not project) expand the branding folder as show in the image

Nb Platform branding folder

Add the following in the Bundle.properties

LBL_Copyright=<div style\="font-size\: 12pt; font-family\: Verdana, 'Verdana CE',  Arial, 'Arial CE', 'Lucida Grande CE', lucida, 'Helvetica CE', sans-serif; ">
Copyright &copy; 2003-2007 KIYUT. Please visit <a style\="color\: \#1E2A60;" href\="http\://www.kiyut.com">http\://www.kiyut.com</a>.<br>
Warning\: This computer program is protected by copyright law and international treaties. Unauthorized reproduction or distribution may result in severe civil and criminal penalties, and will be prosecuted to the maximum extend possible under the law.</div>


Customize the About Dialog Image (Optional)

If you need to have different image for splash and about dialog, you need to supply the about image file.
The image must be named about.png (not gif) with dimension 259×252 px.

The file about.png must be placed under

Nb Platform branding folder



  1. 7 Responses to “Customize Netbeans Platform Splash Screen and About Dialog”

  2. By Azlan Aziz on Dec 17, 2007 | Reply

    Dear Tony,

    Thanks for the article.

    I have managed to customize the About dialog box in NB6. However, how do I change the link (www.netbeans.org) when the top image is double clicked?

    Thanks

  3. By Tonny Kohar on Dec 18, 2007 | Reply

    To customize the link for the About image, you need to add the following into the org-netbeans-core.jar bundle.properties (the bundle.properties where you set LBL_Copyright)

    URL_ON_IMG=http://www.kiyut.com/

  4. By Tom Wheeler on Feb 14, 2008 | Reply

    Hi Tonny: I just wanted to drop a quick note to say that this blog entry really helped me today when I was trying to remember where the URL_ON_IMG property gets set. Nice work!

  5. By Jaideep Ganguli on Feb 24, 2008 | Reply

    Hi Tonny: I tried this with NetBeans IDE 6.0 (Build 200711261600) and it doesn’t seem to be picking up my branding. It does pick up the Branding image but not the URL_ON_IMG and LBL_Copyright. Any ideas if this changed since the Beta version.

    Thanks very much.

  6. By Tonny Kohar on Feb 25, 2008 | Reply

    @Jaideep

    As far as I know, it is working up to Netbeans 6.0.1, because we use it. Please make sure you put your branding in the correct bundle.properties and folder (core and module folder is different).

    Also note that since Netbeans 6-beta2, it no longer share splash and about image, so you need both of them

  7. By Emmanuel on Mar 12, 2008 | Reply

    Nice tutorial, I’ve been trying to know how to do this for the past 6 months!!!

    THANKS!

  8. By Steve Nelson on Mar 26, 2008 | Reply

    Thanks Tonny.

    By the way, if the folder org-netbeans-core.jar is not there, you can create it along with the other folders org, netbeans, core and ui then create a Bundle.properties file and add the information in you have supplied.

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