Work in progress - my very rich swing application - Part 2

I got some "free" time over the weekend, and I made some good progress on my "very rich" swing application. Here is a screenshot for your viewing pleasure. On the course of my development I learned a lot of new Java Swing techniques. Thanks to the swing/UI design gurus like Romain Guy and John Lipsky.
I have added basic features of "CRUD" - create, read, updated and delete; so I will say that the application is in early beta stage. I am yet to finalize further requirements, ideas etc. If you have any suggestion, please post.

Work in progress - my very rich swing application

Here are screenshots of work in progress so far. Right now, the code is open and available under google project called "jSpent".
But be aware of the fact that the code is still in some primitive shape, requires some refactoring etc.

Here is screenshot from a windows
environment. Sad but true, java Swing ( Java 6) in Windows looks better than compared to OS X.

A simple plugin framework in Java

As part of my hobby project, I thought of coming up with some sort of a plug-in mechanism. Though I have worked in a "plug and play"-like J2EE project, I have never done a desktop application with plug-in nature.
I like the way plug-ins work in eclipse. Just extract your plug-ins in to a specific folder. So, my application also would have a similar plug-in mechanism.
Following is the way I have implemented the plug-in manager:

Get to plugins directory
For each file in plugins directory
If file ends with ".jar"
See if there is a plugin-manifest.xml inside the jar
If found read the XML and get data about the Plugin
Save plugin data to a list/map for future use
Add the jar to current classpath as plugin may be used.
End if
End if
End for

Putting together a modern UI using Java swing.

I had been working a lot with Java2D and graphics in my free time. So, when I thought of a little utility application for myself, I thought of applying all sorts of "Swing hacks" that I came across so far. Thanks to swing gurus like 'Roamin Guy' and 'John Lipsky', I am able to build somewhat beautiful UI. A lot of time is being spent in putting all the components together and testing while I am losing focus on the real task in my hand - building my little utility application. Hm.. some day I will build it. Here is a screenshot of the work so far for now.

Java has come a very long way in terms of UI and graphics performance. I am only an entry level programmer when it comes to graphics and swing painting. But this application is running pretty smooth on both windows and OS X and it only can be attributed to Java 6's performance.