The Quaqua Look and Feel (Quaqua) is a user interface library for Java applications which wish to closely adhere to the Apple Human Interface Guidelines for Mac OS X.
Sun's Metalworks Demo running with the Quaqua Look and Feel
Quaqua is not a fully self-contained look and feel. It runs on top of Apple's Aqua Look and Feel, and provides fixes and enhancements for it.
The code of the Quaqua Look and Feel is copyright by Werner Randelshofer.
The Aqua user interface generated by the Quaqua Look and Feel is copyright by Apple Inc. Aqua is a trademark of Apple Inc.
With exception of the Aqua artwork in the code (images and other graphical elements which reproduce Aqua), the code of Quaqua can be licensed under the terms of the LGPL and/or the Modified BSD license. Use of the Aqua user interface is only licensed for Apple hardware running an Apple operating system.
Quaqua is free for commercial and non-commercial use.
The Quaqua Look and Feel is available in two editions.
The Quaqua Look and Feel supports Apple's J2SE 1.4, J2SE 5 and J2SE 6 and SoyLatte J2SE 6 on Mac OS X 10.4 and 10.5.
Altough Quaqua works with J2SE 6, it provides limited support for features which go beyond J2SE 5.
The Quaqua native libraries support PowerPC and Intel Macs with 32-bits or 64-bit processors. Quaqua will work without these native libraries, but user experience degrades.
Due to copyright restrictions and technical constraints, Quaqua can be run on non-Mac OS X systems for development purposes only.
No, you can't, except for development purposes.
This is because the Aqua user interface can only be licensed from Apple for use on Mac OS X.
Even if Apple would license it for use on other platforms, you wouldn't want to do it if you care about your users.
Aqua does not just look different than other user interfaces, it feels different as well. For example, when compared with the Windows UX interface, differences can be found in the set of keyboard accelerators, the focus behavior, the selection behavior, the modality of dialogs and in the use of transition and animation effects.
Probably never, but thank you for reporting it in the bug tracker. ;-)
Quaqua is an open source project. You are invited to contribute work to it, or to donate a gift or money for a specific work item.