Simulating visual behaviour of buttons on button bar, like Firefox.

Question

I want to introduce visual behaviour like the Firefox button bar, where the buttons display with no background and no border, until you mouse over them.
I have a panel that I use to display a button bar. The buttons on the button bar are instances of JButton.
I can use jButton.setBorderPainted(false) and jButton.setBorder(null) to turn off the button frame.
However, when using a look and feel, set by UIManager.setLookAndFeel(UIManager.getSystemLookAndFeelClassName()), then the borders always paint.
How can I turn off the borders and background for these buttons?

Answer 1

On windows xp platform
use JToolBar instead of panel, look at the code below and try to run it on windows xp platform
import javax.swing.UIManager;
public class NewJFrame extends javax.swing.JFrame
    public NewJFrame()
        initComponents();   
    /** This method is called from within the constructor to
     * initialize the form.
     * WARNING: Do NOT modify this code. The content of this method is
     * always regenerated by the Form Editor.
    @SuppressWarnings("unchecked")
    // <editor-fold defaultstate="collapsed" desc="Generated Code">
    private void initComponents() {
        jPopupMenu1 = new javax.swing.JPopupMenu();
        jMenuItem1 = new javax.swing.JMenuItem();
        jToolBar1 = new javax.swing.JToolBar();
        jButton1 = new javax.swing.JButton();
        jButton2 = new javax.swing.JButton();
        jButton3 = new javax.swing.JButton();
        jMenuItem1.setText("Item");
        jPopupMenu1.add(jMenuItem1);
        setDefaultCloseOperation(javax.swing.WindowConstants.EXIT_ON_CLOSE);
        jToolBar1.setRollover(true);
        jButton1.setText("jButton1");
        jButton1.setFocusable(false);
        jButton1.setHorizontalTextPosition(javax.swing.SwingConstants.CENTER);
        jButton1.setVerticalTextPosition(javax.swing.SwingConstants.BOTTOM);
        jToolBar1.add(jButton1);
        jButton2.setText("jButton2");
        jButton2.setFocusable(false);
        jButton2.setHorizontalTextPosition(javax.swing.SwingConstants.CENTER);
        jButton2.setVerticalTextPosition(javax.swing.SwingConstants.BOTTOM);
        jToolBar1.add(jButton2);
        jButton3.setText("jButton3");
        jButton3.setFocusable(false);
        jButton3.setHorizontalTextPosition(javax.swing.SwingConstants.CENTER);
        jButton3.setVerticalTextPosition(javax.swing.SwingConstants.BOTTOM);
        jToolBar1.add(jButton3);
        getContentPane().add(jToolBar1, java.awt.BorderLayout.NORTH);
        pack();
    }// </editor-fold>
    * @param args the command line arguments
    public static void main(String args[]) {
        try
            UIManager.setLookAndFeel(UIManager.getSystemLookAndFeelClassName());
        catch(Exception e)
        java.awt.EventQueue.invokeLater(new Runnable() {
            public void run() {
                new NewJFrame().setVisible(true);
    // Variables declaration - do not modify
    private javax.swing.JButton jButton1;
    private javax.swing.JButton jButton2;
    private javax.swing.JButton jButton3;
    private javax.swing.JMenuItem jMenuItem1;
    private javax.swing.JPopupMenu jPopupMenu1;
    private javax.swing.JToolBar jToolBar1;
    // End of variables declaration
}