NetBeans Architecture Answers for Project UI module

General Information

Question (arch-what): What is this project good for?
Answer:

General user interface implementation for the project system. UI Specification

Question (arch-overall): Describe the overall architecture.
Answer:

Module provides general implementation of projects UI and exports client friend API only.

Question (arch-usecases): Describe the main use cases of the new API. Who will use it under what circumstances? What kind of code would typically need to be written to use the module?
Answer:

Needed for working with projects in the IDE.

RecentProjects -

API can be used to get list of information about recently opened projects in IDE. API provides project display name, icon and URL of project folder location. Listeners can be registered to learn about change of the list.

Question (arch-time): What are the time estimates of the work?
Answer:

Mostly done.

Question (arch-quality): How will the quality of your code be tested and how are future regressions going to be prevented?
Answer:

Unit tests would be appropriate for some code areas; currently few exist. IDE-wide functional tests cover most of the module’s functionality. Basic API functionality is covered by unit tests.

Question (arch-where): Where one can find sources for your module?
Answer:

The sources for the module are in the NetBeans Mercurial repositories.

Project and platform dependencies

Question (dep-nb): What other NetBeans projects and modules does this one depend on?
Answer:
• ProjectAPI -

  For many purposes.

• ProjectUIAPI -

  For many purposes.

• ProjectUIAPI-provider -

  Implements callback from this module.

• GeneralQueriesAPI -

  For many purposes.

• Filesystems -

  For many purposes.

• Nodes -

  For explorer tabs.

• Explorer -

  For explorer tabs.

• Windows -

  For explorer tabs.

• Actions -

  For menu item UI.

• Datasystems -

  For internal purposes.

• SearchAPI -

  Special search functionality for project nodes.

• XMLCatalogAPI -

  Validation of project.xml files (cf. #49976).

Question (dep-non-nb): What other projects outside NetBeans does this one depend on?
Answer:

None.

Question (dep-platform): On which platforms does your module run? Does it run in the same way on each?
Answer:

Any.

Question (dep-jre): Which version of JRE do you need (1.2, 1.3, 1.4, etc.)?
Answer:

1.4+.

Question (dep-jrejdk): Do you require the JDK or is the JRE enough?
Answer:

JRE.

Deployment

Question (deploy-jar): Do you deploy just module JAR file(s) or other files as well?
Answer:

JAR only.

Question (deploy-nbm): Can you deploy an NBM via the Update Center?
Answer:

Yes.

Question (deploy-shared): Do you need to be installed in the shared location only, or in the user directory only, or can your module be installed anywhere?
Answer:

Anywhere.

Question (deploy-packages): Are packages of your module made inaccessible by not declaring them public?
Answer: RecentProjects -

There is package org.netbeans.modules.project.ui.api which is public and exposed as friend API.

Question (deploy-dependencies): What do other modules need to do to declare a dependency on this one, in addition to or instead of the normal module dependency declaration (e.g. tokens to require)?
Answer:

N/A

Compatibility with environment

Question (compat-i18n): Is your module correctly internationalized?
Answer:

Yes.

Question (compat-standards): Does the module implement or define any standards? Is the implementation exact or does it deviate somehow?
Answer:

No.

Question (compat-version): Can your module coexist with earlier and future versions of itself? Can you correctly read all old settings? Will future versions be able to read your current settings? Can you read or politely ignore settings stored by a future version?
Answer:

Uses a system option, but otherwise not much to version.

Question (compat-deprecation): How the introduction of your project influences functionality provided by previous version of the product?
Answer:

No APIs are planned to be deprecated/removed/changed.

Access to resources

Question (resources-file): Does your module use java.io.File directly?
Answer:

Sometimes.

Question (resources-layer): Does your module provide own layer? Does it create any files or folders in it? What it is trying to communicate by that and with which components?
Answer:

Installs a whole lot of UI through the layer. Menus, templates, etc. Also is using Loaders-folder-any-Actions - to add certain build system actions to folder popup menu and hide the default ones.

Question (resources-read): Does your module read any resources from layers? For what purpose?
Answer: ProjectsTabActions -

Actions for the Projects tab root context menu are taken from the layer folder ProjectsTabActions. Foreign modules ought to place entries below sep-below-main-actions.instance.

Question (resources-mask): Does your module mask/hide/override any resources provided by other modules in their layers?
Answer:

Seems to override mode definitions for explorer components.

Question (resources-preferences): Does your module uses preferences via Preferences API? Does your module use NbPreferences or or regular JDK Preferences ? Does it read, write or both ? Does it share preferences with other modules ? If so, then why ?
Answer: org.netbeans.modules.projectui -

List of open projects. See OpenProjectListSettings.

org.netbeans.modules.projectui.groups -

Project groups. See Group.

Lookup of components

Question (lookup-lookup): Does your module use org.openide.util.Lookup or any similar technology to find any components to communicate with? Which ones?
Answer:

The UI asks projects for various documented interfaces in their lookup; details given in the particular interfaces. E.g. LogicalViewProvider is sought out in project lookups when displaying the logical view. The UI uses AuxiliaryConfiguration to store list of files opened in the project in an instant closing the project. Will be used for reopen these files when this project opens.

Question (lookup-register): Do you register anything into lookup for other code to find?
Answer:

Callback implementation for the Project UI API.

Question (lookup-remove): Do you remove entries of other modules from lookup?
Answer:

No.

Execution Environment

Question (exec-property): Is execution of your code influenced by any environment or Java system (System.getProperty) property? On a similar note, is there something interesting that you pass to java.util.logging.Logger? Or do you observe what others log?
Answer:
• project.tab.no.selection -

  When this property is set, the opening of projects doesn't trigger opening and focusing of the projects logical view top component. Allows the BlueJ Edition to focus it's own component instead.

• org.netbeans.modules.project.ui.OpenProjectList -

  Error manager logging category for things affecting project list.

• netbeans.projects.dir -

  Property for overriding default location of projects directory which is folder NetBeansProjects under $HOME on Unixes and under default user folder on Windows (e.g. C:\Documents and Settings\[username]\My Documents\NetBeansProjects). Directory passed by the property must exist, otherwise default is used.

• org.netbeans.ui.actions.UI_ACTION_BUTTON_PRESS - There is a special support for notifying when an action wrapped by LookupSensitiveAction is invoked and how. The support is using Logger.getLogger("org.netbeans.ui.actions") and sents a LogRecord with message UI_ACTION_BUTTON_PRESS, FINER level and paramerters:
  • {0} instance of the button
  • {1} class of the button
  • {2} instance of the action
  • {3} class of the action
  • {4} display name of the action
  whenever such action is invoked. This message can then be consumed by enhanced UI logger that track what the user is going.
Question (exec-component): Is execution of your code influenced by any (string) property of any of your components?
Answer:

Yes, the org.netbeans.modules.project.ui.TemplatesPanel reads the properties: PRESELECT_CATEGORY -

Path to a category of project type, e.g. Sample/Standard.

PRESELECT_TEMPLATE -

Name of a project type, e.g. emptyWeb.

These properties affect which category and project are preselected in 1st panel of NewProjectWizard. If properties are empty (as default) then category/project are selected by UI spec.
Question (exec-ant-tasks): Do you define or register any ant tasks that other can use?
Answer:

No Ant tasks.

Question (exec-classloader): Does your code create its own class loader(s)?
Answer:

No.

Question (exec-reflection): Does your code use Java Reflection to execute other code?
Answer:

org.netbeans.modules.project.ui.Hacks does some things to fix actions for folder context menus; update the main window title; and do something strange with TemplateWizard.

Question (exec-privateaccess): Are you aware of any other parts of the system calling some of your methods by reflection?
Answer:

No.

Question (exec-process): Do you execute an external process from your module? How do you ensure that the result is the same on different platforms? Do you parse output? Do you depend on result code?
Answer:

No.

Question (exec-introspection): Does your module use any kind of runtime type information (instanceof, work with java.lang.Class, etc.)?
Answer:

No.

Question (exec-threading): What threading models, if any, does your module adhere to? How the project behaves with respect to threading?
Answer:

Mostly EQ.

Question (security-policy): Does your functionality require modifications to the standard policy file?
Answer:

No.

Question (security-grant): Does your code grant additional rights to some other code?
Answer:

No.

Format of files and protocols

Question (format-types): Which protocols and file formats (if any) does your module read or write on disk, or transmit or receive over the network? Do you generate an ant build script? Can it be edited and modified?
Answer:

None.

Question (format-dnd): Which protocols (if any) does your code understand during Drag & Drop?
Answer:

None.

Question (format-clipboard): Which data flavors (if any) does your code read from or insert to the clipboard (by access to clipboard on means calling methods on java.awt.datatransfer.Transferable?
Answer:

None.

Performance and Scalability

Question (perf-startup): Does your module run any code on startup?
Answer:

Calls ProjectOpenedHook.projectOpened() on projects.

Question (perf-exit): Does your module run any code on exit?
Answer:

Calls ProjectOpenedHook.projectClosed() on projects.

Question (perf-scale): Which external criteria influence the performance of your program (size of file in editor, number of files in menu, in source directory, etc.) and how well your code scales?
Answer:

Number of open modules.

Question (perf-limit): Are there any hard-coded or practical limits in the number or size of elements your code can handle?
Answer:

No.

Question (perf-mem): How much memory does your component consume? Estimate with a relation to the number of windows, etc.
Answer:

Unknown.

Question (perf-wakeup): Does any piece of your code wake up periodically and do something even when the system is otherwise idle (no user interaction)?
Answer:

No.

Question (perf-progress): Does your module execute any long-running tasks?
Answer:

No.

Question (perf-huge_dialogs): Does your module contain any dialogs or wizards with a large number of GUI controls such as combo boxes, lists, trees, or text areas?
Answer:

Nothing too big.

Question (perf-menus): Does your module use dynamically updated context menus, or context-sensitive actions with complicated and slow enablement logic?
Answer:

Yes, project-selection- and file-selection-sensitive actions are updated dynamically.

Question (perf-spi): How the performance of the plugged in code will be enforced?
Answer:

No special provisions.