how to change general java gui settings?

[Bram Kuijper]

Hi all,

sorry for reposting a question, but I did not get an answer last time:

recently, the gui of java programs running on my various ubuntu pc's
started to look a bit different. Especially the height between different
rows in the gui became larger: menu items are now more apart, rows of
database programs are now more widely distant and text within those
lines is not properly vertically lined out, making it sometimes unreadable.

For an example of the problem, see the following screenshot of the
program JabRef:
http://merops.njn.nl/~bram/Screenshot-JabRef.png
Note especially the weird vertical spacing of the text.

Does anybody know if there is a standard gui setting in the java vm to
change 'row heights' in java? And how to change things like 
gui-appearance of java programs? Can that be done at all?

thanks,

Bram