# General Prefs : Look-and-Feel

FScape is written in Java(tm) which is completely platform independant. This raises the need for a graphical user interface (GUI) to be independant of the platform's native look-and-feel. For the user this may appear to be an inconvenience, however Java allows you to switch to different look-and-feels. On MacOS, for example, a very smooth integration into the native Aqua interface is achieved through the 'Mac OS X' look-and-feel. Similarily, on Windows and Linux recent versions of Sun's VM include look-and-feels for Windows XP or Gnome.

You can easily install other look-and-feels. For example, a very nice looking free one is 'Metouia', a sourceforge project located at mlf.sourceforge.net. The .jar file needs to be installed somewhere in the classpath, e.g. on Mac OS put it into `"/System/Library/Java/Extensions"`, and two lines need to be added to the file `"swing.properties"` which resides in `"$JAVAHOME/lib"` (on Mac OS X, `$JAVAHOME` corresponds to the alias `/System/Library/Frameworks/JavaVM.framework/Home`):

    swing.installedlaf.metouia.name=Metouia
    swing.installedlaf.metouia.class=net.sourceforge.mlf.metouia.MetouiaLookAndFeel

Because switching the look-and-feel would require a lot of internal updates to the application, changes become only effective after quitting and restarting FScape.