I’m newbie using Seesaw, I got a problem when I launch seesaw. I
found the window and text font size is very small in my MacBook Pro 2015(HiDPI).
I’m wandering is there a way to configure seesaw to support HiDPI screen and is
there a way to detect HiDPI screen in Clojure/Seesaw?
Clojure version: 1.10.1
seesaw version: 1.5.0
What JDK are you using? (early JDKs do not support HIDPI screens properly)
If you’re on a recent JDK, adding -Dglass.gtk.uiScale=200% to your JVM options at startup might help (it helps with JavaFX apps on Mac but I don’t know about Swing).
If you are stuck on a java 1.8 or older jvm, default seesaw won’t be good at high res. However, the Substance theme (I first learned of from the original nightcode editor swing implementation) will scale. It has some really strict UI threading requirements that default swing doesn’t, so interactive gui editing from a repl thread works (technically unsafely) in seesaw / normal swing, but throws concurrent access errors in substance. I have a wrapper called saner substance that should correct this. You just set the platform look and feel like here and you should be good to go. On my hidpi 4k display it looks great.
Cool, that led to this: https://github.com/kirill-grouchnikov/radiance which seems like a quite nice set of additions for writing modern Swing apps. Looking at those, almost feels more appealing then JavaFx. Though its Java 9+ only.
Thanks for replying, @seancorfield.
I’m using JVM 14 (OpenJDK).
I tried your option by adding it into Leiningen project.clj:
(defproject hello-seesaw "0.1.0-SNAPSHOT"
:description "FIXME: write description"
:url "http://example.com/FIXME"
:license {:name "EPL-2.0 OR GPL-2.0-or-later WITH Classpath-exception-2.0"
:url "https://www.eclipse.org/legal/epl-2.0/"}
:dependencies [[org.clojure/clojure "1.10.1"]
[seesaw "1.5.0"]]
:repl-options {:init-ns hello-seesaw.core}
:jvm-options ["-Dglass.gtk.uiScale=200%"])
Then restart CIDER REPL, run -main method, still small. I also tried command lein run -m hello-seesaw.core. Same small.
Substance and related themes are really nice to see “in action”; since they have cool little animations and subtle effects that are just excellent. I’m sure there are javafx versions/variants, but swing with substance feels advanced (despite being swing, hah).
They were supposed to have fixed hidpi for swing at some point on the jvm; I assumed it had been done. Looks like they did it in jdk 9.
Interesting libs
I can’t understand your previous message about substance very much, still try to study. 
And this FlatLaf and swing-dpi solutions are great. I will try it soon. Thanks very much for your reply.
The link was supposed to point to specific line in the repository:
here
Which shows some code. If you take out the noise, it looks like this:
(ns demo
(:require [seesaw.core :as s]
[seesaw.icon :as i]
[sanersubstance.core :as substance])
(:import [org.pushingpixels.substance.api SubstanceLookAndFeel]
[org.pushingpixels.substance.api.skin GraphiteSkin]))
(defn set-theme! []
(s/native!)
(SubstanceLookAndFeel/setSkin (GraphiteSkin.))
(substance/enforce-event-dispatch)))
If you have seesaw and the saner-substance library in your dependencies, this should set your theme to substance, with the fixes I put in, and hidpi should work (it does for me on older jvms). I have not tested on mac though, but it works on linux and windows.
Thanks for your sharing. 
I added sanersubstance as project dependency. Then copy your code to execute.
I got error on set-theme!
1. Unhandled java.lang.NullPointerException
(No message)
LookAndFeel.java: 243 javax.swing.LookAndFeel/uninstallBorder
SubstanceRootPaneUI.java: 296 org.pushingpixels.substance.internal.ui.SubstanceRootPaneUI/uninstallBorder
SubstanceRootPaneUI.java: 683 org.pushingpixels.substance.internal.ui.SubstanceRootPaneUI/uninstallClientDecorations
SubstanceRootPaneUI.java: 260 org.pushingpixels.substance.internal.ui.SubstanceRootPaneUI/__org__pushingpixels__substance__internal__ui__SubstanceRootPaneUI__uninstallUI
SubstanceRootPaneUI.java: -1 org.pushingpixels.substance.internal.ui.SubstanceRootPaneUI/uninstallUI
JComponent.java: 700 javax.swing.JComponent/uninstallUIAndProperties
JComponent.java: 675 javax.swing.JComponent/setUI
JRootPane.java: 445 javax.swing.JRootPane/setUI
JRootPane.java: 455 javax.swing.JRootPane/updateUI
SwingUtilities.java: 1363 javax.swing.SwingUtilities/updateComponentTreeUI0
SwingUtilities.java: 1378 javax.swing.SwingUtilities/updateComponentTreeUI0
SwingUtilities.java: 1354 javax.swing.SwingUtilities/updateComponentTreeUI
SubstanceLookAndFeel.java: 2171 org.pushingpixels.substance.api.SubstanceLookAndFeel/setSkin
SubstanceLookAndFeel.java: 92 org.pushingpixels.substance.api.SubstanceLookAndFeel/access$000
SubstanceLookAndFeel.java: 2136 org.pushingpixels.substance.api.SubstanceLookAndFeel$3/run
InvocationEvent.java: 306 java.awt.event.InvocationEvent/dispatch
EventQueue.java: 770 java.awt.EventQueue/dispatchEventImpl
EventQueue.java: 721 java.awt.EventQueue$4/run
EventQueue.java: 715 java.awt.EventQueue$4/run
AccessController.java: 391 java.security.AccessController/doPrivileged
ProtectionDomain.java: 85 java.security.ProtectionDomain$JavaSecurityAccessImpl/doIntersectionPrivilege
EventQueue.java: 740 java.awt.EventQueue/dispatchEvent
EventDispatchThread.java: 203 java.awt.EventDispatchThread/pumpOneEventForFilters
EventDispatchThread.java: 124 java.awt.EventDispatchThread/pumpEventsForFilter
EventDispatchThread.java: 113 java.awt.EventDispatchThread/pumpEventsForHierarchy
EventDispatchThread.java: 109 java.awt.EventDispatchThread/pumpEvents
EventDispatchThread.java: 101 java.awt.EventDispatchThread/pumpEvents
EventDispatchThread.java: 90 java.awt.EventDispatchThread/run
Then I execute one small code piece by one.
(GraphiteSkin.)
Result: #object[org.pushingpixels.substance.api.skin.GraphiteSkin 0x18db38c5 "org.pushingpixels.substance.api.skin.GraphiteSkin@18db38c5"]
(SubstanceLookAndFeel/setSkin (GraphiteSkin.))
Result: false
(substance/enforce-event-dispatch)
Result: `nil.
Do I need to download some theme files for substance?
UPDATE:
After I execute (set-theme!). Then I execute bellowing code got another error:
(-> (frame :title "Hello",
:content "Hello, Seesaw",
:on-close :dispose)
pack!
show!)
Error:
1. Unhandled java.lang.NullPointerException
(No message)
SubstanceColorUtilities.java: 759 org.pushingpixels.substance.internal.utils.SubstanceColorUtilities/getDefaultBackgroundColor
SubstanceColorUtilities.java: 661 org.pushingpixels.substance.internal.utils.SubstanceColorUtilities/getBackgroundFillColor
SubstancePanelUI.java: 74 org.pushingpixels.substance.internal.ui.SubstancePanelUI/__org__pushingpixels__substance__internal__ui__SubstancePanelUI__installDefaults
SubstancePanelUI.java: -1 org.pushingpixels.substance.internal.ui.SubstancePanelUI/installDefaults
BasicPanelUI.java: 62 javax.swing.plaf.basic.BasicPanelUI/installUI
SubstancePanelUI.java: -1 org.pushingpixels.substance.internal.ui.SubstancePanelUI/__org__pushingpixels__substance__internal__ui__SubstancePanelUI__installUI
SubstancePanelUI.java: -1 org.pushingpixels.substance.internal.ui.SubstancePanelUI/installUI
JComponent.java: 685 javax.swing.JComponent/setUI
JPanel.java: 150 javax.swing.JPanel/setUI
JPanel.java: 126 javax.swing.JPanel/updateUI
JPanel.java: 86 javax.swing.JPanel/<init>
JPanel.java: 109 javax.swing.JPanel/<init>
JPanel.java: 117 javax.swing.JPanel/<init>
JRootPane.java: 517 javax.swing.JRootPane/createGlassPane
JRootPane.java: 344 javax.swing.JRootPane/<init>
JFrame.java: 279 javax.swing.JFrame/createRootPane
nil: -1 seesaw.core.proxy$javax.swing.JFrame$Tag$fd407141/createRootPane
JFrame.java: 258 javax.swing.JFrame/frameInit
nil: -1 seesaw.core.proxy$javax.swing.JFrame$Tag$fd407141/frameInit
JFrame.java: 181 javax.swing.JFrame/<init>
nil: -1 seesaw.core.proxy$javax.swing.JFrame$Tag$fd407141/<init>
core.clj: 2875 seesaw.core/frame
core.clj: 2821 seesaw.core/frame
RestFn.java: 512 clojure.lang.RestFn/invoke
d9894a6e20d3260853f359a297ddffa5afcb90f563adf375d5b4d927bbbeb460-init.clj: 15 hello-seesaw.core/eval23563
d9894a6e20d3260853f359a297ddffa5afcb90f563adf375d5b4d927bbbeb460-init.clj: 15 hello-seesaw.core/eval23563
Compiler.java: 7177 clojure.lang.Compiler/eval
Compiler.java: 7132 clojure.lang.Compiler/eval
core.clj: 3214 clojure.core/eval
core.clj: 3210 clojure.core/eval
interruptible_eval.clj: 87 nrepl.middleware.interruptible-eval/evaluate/fn/fn
AFn.java: 152 clojure.lang.AFn/applyToHelper
AFn.java: 144 clojure.lang.AFn/applyTo
core.clj: 665 clojure.core/apply
core.clj: 1973 clojure.core/with-bindings*
core.clj: 1973 clojure.core/with-bindings*
RestFn.java: 425 clojure.lang.RestFn/invoke
interruptible_eval.clj: 87 nrepl.middleware.interruptible-eval/evaluate/fn
main.clj: 437 clojure.main/repl/read-eval-print/fn
main.clj: 437 clojure.main/repl/read-eval-print
main.clj: 458 clojure.main/repl/fn
main.clj: 458 clojure.main/repl
main.clj: 368 clojure.main/repl
RestFn.java: 137 clojure.lang.RestFn/applyTo
core.clj: 665 clojure.core/apply
core.clj: 660 clojure.core/apply
regrow.clj: 20 refactor-nrepl.ns.slam.hound.regrow/wrap-clojure-repl/fn
RestFn.java: 1523 clojure.lang.RestFn/invoke
interruptible_eval.clj: 84 nrepl.middleware.interruptible-eval/evaluate
interruptible_eval.clj: 56 nrepl.middleware.interruptible-eval/evaluate
interruptible_eval.clj: 152 nrepl.middleware.interruptible-eval/interruptible-eval/fn/fn
AFn.java: 22 clojure.lang.AFn/run
session.clj: 202 nrepl.middleware.session/session-exec/main-loop/fn
session.clj: 201 nrepl.middleware.session/session-exec/main-loop
AFn.java: 22 clojure.lang.AFn/run
Thread.java: 832 java.lang.Thread/run
Looks like it’s a problem with jdk 14 (I run on 8, since I target some legacy systems).
On a demo project with clojure 1.10.1, and saner-substance as the only dependencies, everything works fine. The difference is in this line:
(SubstanceLookAndFeel/setSkin (GraphiteSkin.))
I get true (e.g. it was successful). I don’t know what changed with swing and substance in Java 14, hmm.
I got true after restart CIDER REPL, eval it again, then I got false.
Don’t know is this a problem. From your words, it should be right.
================
And the the second error.
When I eval frame code, I got Unhandled java.lang.NullPointerException in org.pushingpixels.substance.internal.utils.SubstanceColorUtilities/getDefaultBackgroundColor.
I tried to execute it manually, but don’t know what argument does it accept. So can test it.
I will try to switch to older JDK version. Hope got correct result. Thanks @joinr
– UPDATE–
I tried JDK 11 version. Same error: Unhandled java.lang.NullPointerException, org.pushingpixels.substance.internal.utils.SubstanceColorUtilities/getDefaultBackgroundColor as upper second pasted backtrace.
I don’t think JDK 11 is “old” enough. That is, it looks like things changed around Java 9 (when they started going toward faster releases, introduce the module system, etc.). It could have something to do with how swing is or isn’t being initialized in Java 9+, I am not sure. Perhaps there are classes that are being elided. You could always try JDK 8 just to see (like install adopt open jdk). It may be possible to coax out the correct behavior, although the new version of substance (under radiance now) is only meant to be JDK 9+. So probably the better bet would be to use the radiance library, set the substance theme that way (slightly different than the code I posted), and see how things work out. unfortunately, I do not have a wrapper like saner-substance for the radiance/substance stuff, so you will have to invoke everything on the swing dispatch thread I believe. I think it’s seesaw.core/invoke-later or seesaw.core/invoke-now for async or sync variants.
Here’s a demo repository that works with Java 14 on windows. It’s using the newer substance (which is java 9 or greater), and is not using the convenience wrappers from saner substance, so everything that seesaw does to create swing components “has” to be done on the event dispatch thread (e.g. via seesaw.core/invoke-now or invoke-later), or else substance will throw a bunch of concurrent access exceptions at you when rendering components. As an aside, on Java 14, Windows, my font is already HiDPI scaled perfectly (prior to using substance). There may be some platform-specific problems going on that I’m not familiar with.
Yes, I would not mess around with “saner substance”; if you are using Swing, you should get used to working with the way Swing works, and only try to manipulate UI elements on the Swing event dispatch thread, using invoke-now from the REPL (if you want to see the result) or invoke-later if you don’t care to.
I’ve been using Substance with the Raven skin to great effect in my Beat Link Trigger project, and sneakily getting more and more people involved in performing music and light/laser shows to learn a little Clojure. It works with JDK 9 or later on all OSes; I embed an OpenJDK 14 distribution in my macOS and Windows installers.
“saner substance” obeys swing’s idioms; it just forces component creation to default to ensuring EDT. The type of repl driven development that seesaw encourages will work fine, right up until you run into substance’s hardcore thread protection. None of this is an issue with stock swing stuff (at least, it’s not presented as an issue via exceptions). IME this is overkill. So you are now back to doing everything manually on the EDT, particularly if you’re doing a lot of interactive development and prototyping. Substance’s complaining about non-EDT invocation gets old fast, hence wrapper classes that have worked fine for ~4 years in production (in a legacy Java 8 environment though). Were I to migrate to Java 9+, I would wrap the classes again.
Thanks for creating a demo testing project. 
I installed JDK8, the scale is not working, but the theme seems work. Because the background color turns into dark.
Here is a screenshot.
And then I tried your test project on JDK14. also attached a screenshot:
Does it related to my Linux GTK/KDE settings? I have setted KDE global scale to 175%.
In theory, JDK 14 should render correctly with or without substance. I am afraid you are entering territory I am unfamiliar with regarding the native platform interactions with display scaling 
I guess too. I temporary put this problem aside, try to figure it out again one day.
Thanks for your long time help, @joinr
