Netbeans using Synthetica Look And Feel

I wanted a custom look and feel for Netbeans running under KDE environment. By default it was using Java's Metal looks which was quite ugly.

So while searching for some custom look and feel I came across Synthetica look and feel and downloaded it from www.javasoft.de . The look and feel is free for non-commercial use. I also downloaded all the add-ons along with this theme from the same website which were free for non-commercial use. Also refer to minimum requirements to run the look and feel.

I extracted jar files form the downloaded zipped files and placed them under a common folder. Then I created an executable script and saved it in the bin directory of my Netbeans folder. The script is given below:
./netbeans --cp:p /home/desperado/synthetica/synthetica.jar
:/home/desperado/synthetica/syntheticaBlackMoon.jar
:/home/desperado/synthetica/syntheticaBlackStar.jar
:/home/desperado/synthetica/syntheticaBlueIce.jar
:/home/desperado/synthetica/syntheticaBlueMoon.jar
:/home/desperado/synthetica/syntheticaBlueSteel.jar
:/home/desperado/synthetica/syntheticaGreenDream.jar
:/home/desperado/synthetica/syntheticaSilverMoon.jar --laf de.javasoft.plaf.synthetica.SyntheticaBlueMoonLookAndFeel

You can see all the jar files are loaded at startup. You might want not to load all the jars so you can specify the specific look and feel jar you want to load. But don't forget to put synthetica.jar file to load along with the specific look and feel jar.

Now open console, change the directory to bin of Netbeans and run the executable script by typing
./[file-name]
You will see Netbeans IDE using Synthetica Look and Feel
Here are some of the screenshots of the Netbeans with synchetica look and feels

Updates for Netbeans 8 and above
Some changes have been made to Netbeans 8 and above for Windows. Even if you add --laf de.javasoft.plaf.synthetica.SyntheticaSimple2DLookAndFeel to netbeans_default_options in netbeans/etc/netbeans.conf file, Netbeans appearance won't change. 

In order to use a custom look and feel in Netbeans 8 and above, add the following line to C:\Users\<user>\AppData\Roaming\NetBeans\8.0\config\Preferences\laf.properties
laf=de.javasoft.plaf.synthetica.SyntheticaBlueIceLookAndFeel

Create the laf.properties file if it doesn't exist. Save the changes and restart Netbeans. Viola! your Netbeans now uses custom look and feel.