Styling a SWT label to be italic

Question

How would I go about styling a SWT label created along the following lines so it is displayed italicised?

Label label = formToolkit.createLabel(composite, "My label name");

Dishwasher

Answer 1

Create a new Font object.

Display display = new Display();
Shell shell = new Shell(display);
shell.setLayout(new GridLayout());
Label label = new Label(shell, SWT.NONE);
label.setText("I am italic");
FontData fontData = label.getFont().getFontData()[0];
Font font = new Font(display, new FontData(fontData.getName(), fontData
    .getHeight(), SWT.ITALIC));
label.setFont(font);
shell.open();
while (!shell.isDisposed()) {
  if (!display.readAndDispatch())
    display.sleep();
}
font.dispose();
display.dispose();

Seka

And just to think, people said Java was too verbose – Dub

Answer 2

It would be better to use FontRegistry class from JFaces, like this:

label.setFont(
    JFaceResources.getFontRegistry().getItalic(JFaceResources.DEFAULT_FONT)
);

Volution

It should be mentioned that this helper class will automatically dispose all requested fonts. So you no longer need to keep references around to dispose them, which is a nice bonus on top of the brevity of this solution. – Redintegrate

Just a small correction: while using an empty string achieves the same effect, the "correct" way to get the default italic font would be getItalic(JFaceResources.DEFAULT_FONT) – Dub

Answer 3

A recent article (February 2014 from Jordi Böhme López) suggest another way to get the current font in order to modify it:

it’s like getting the blueprint of the default font, making some changes and building a new font with the modified blueprint:

Label label = new Label(parent, SWT.NONE);
FontDescriptor descriptor = FontDescriptor.createFrom(label.getFont());
// setStyle method returns a new font descriptor for the given style
descriptor = descriptor.setStyle(SWT.BOLD);
label.setFont(descriptor.createFont(label.getDisplay));
label.setText("Bold Label");

Lindblad

it seems you have to do something like descriptor = descriptor.setStyle(SWT.BOLD); This is more a create() than a set() method – Fluctuation

This solution does not work 1:1 unfortunately. Can't find the fix either. – Attu

the setStyle method returns a new font descriptor for the given style, so better descriptor = descriptor.setStyle(SWT.BOLD) e.g. – Insouciant

@kewlbfy Interesting. I have edited the answer accordingly. Does it look more accurate? – Lindblad

yes, keep in mind that the descriptor.createFont method does call the Font constructor directly, so unlike the expected design of disposables that have to be disposed in case of a constructor call, the font created here also has to be disposed. maybe add it to the fontregistry – Insouciant

Answer 4

The below code should work:

Label lblSample = new Label(shell, SWT.BORDER_SOLID);
lblSample.setFont(new org.eclipse.swt.graphics.Font(null, "Times New Roman", 12, SWT.BOLD | SWT.ITALIC));
lblSample.setText("Enter Text Here");

Jotun