General Information
-
Question (arch-what):
What is this project good for?
Answer:
The
ExplorerAPI
is build around Explorer - solely a user-interface device: it has no particular knowledge
of the structure of the IDE. Rather, it provides the physical user interface for
the Node hierarchy, as described in the
NodesAPI.
A given Explorer instance will be some visual component (such as a Swing panel)
displaying some representation of a subtree of the complete Node hierarchy;
the topmost node being displayed is said to be the root of the Explorer.
Be careful not to confuse the root of a particular Explorer instance, which is
selected according to what the user wishes to see, with the root(s) of
the entire Node hierarchy, which generally are fixed.
Question (arch-overall):
Describe the overall architecture.
Answer:
Provides Swing UI components that render provided node hierarchy in different ways (as a tree, list, icons, set of properties and many other).
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:
For general overview of the concepts related to nodes and explorers,
together with code samples, see chapter 7,
of NetBeans Platform for Beginners
by Jason Wexbridge and Walter Nyland.
XXX no answer for arch-time
Question (arch-quality): How will the quality of your code be tested and how are future regressions going to be prevented? Answer:XXX no answer for arch-quality
Question (arch-where): Where one can find sources for your module? Answer:
The sources for the module are in the Apache Git repositories or in the GitHub repositories.
Project and platform dependencies
-
Question (dep-nb):
What other NetBeans projects and modules does this one depend on?
Answer:
The project needs Nodes API and
UtilitiesAPI
which are essential for it to run. Beyond that it uses runtime
checks for presence of other APIs (PENDING) to use their
features for backward compatibility.
- ETable - The module is needed for compilation. The module is used during runtime. Specification version 1.25 is required.
- TabbedContainerAPI - The module is needed for compilation. The module is used during runtime. Specification version 1.20 is required.
- org.openide.awt - The module is needed for compilation. The module is used during runtime. Specification version 7.82 is required.
- DialogsAPI - The module is needed for compilation. The module is used during runtime. Specification version 6.2 is required.
- NodesAPI - The module is needed for compilation. The module is used during runtime. Specification version 7.24 is required.
- UtilitiesAPI - The module is needed for compilation. The module is used during runtime. Specification version 9.3 is required.
- WeakListener.setAccessible - The module is needed for compilation. The module is used during runtime. Specification version 9.3 is required.
- LookupAPI - The module is needed for compilation. The module is used during runtime. Specification version 8.0 is required.
The default answer to this question is:
These modules are required in project.xml:
Deployment
-
Question (deploy-jar):
Do you deploy just module JAR file(s) or other files as well?
Answer:
Right now the module is part of
openide.jar.
Question (deploy-nbm):
Can you deploy an NBM via the Update Center?
Answer:
The whole openide.jar and core.jar can be updated as nbm file.
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:
As part of openide.jar it needs to be in shared location.
Question (deploy-packages):
Are packages of your module made inaccessible by not declaring them
public?
Answer:
Both packages (org.openide.explorer and org.openide.explorer.view) are
part of API, so there is no need to make them unaccessible.
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:
XXX no answer for deploy-dependencies
Compatibility with environment
-
Question (compat-i18n):
Is your module correctly internationalized?
Answer:
The module is fully internationalized.
Question (compat-standards):
Does the module implement or define any standards? Is the
implementation exact or does it deviate somehow?
Answer:
The explorer does not implement any standards.
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:
The only serializable object that might be part of some settings
is ExplorerManager
which serialization is backward compatible.
Question (compat-deprecation):
How the introduction of your project influences functionality
provided by previous version of the product?
Answer:
XXX no answer for compat-deprecation
Access to resources
-
Question (resources-file):
Does your module use
java.io.File directly?
Answer:
No.
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:
No.
Question (resources-read):
Does your module read any resources from layers? For what purpose?
Answer:
No.
Question (resources-mask):
Does your module mask/hide/override any resources provided by other modules in
their layers?
Answer:
No.
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:
XXX no answer for resources-preferences
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:
Yes, it does. There is searched for java.awt.datatransfer.Clipboard.class
(to obtain clipboard for cut/cope/paste operations),
for org.openide.actions.ActionManager (to process an action in separate
thread) and for registry of all top components.
A presence these object are not forced, system can work w/o them.
Question (lookup-register):
Do you register anything into lookup for other code to find?
Answer:
No.
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:
netbeans.dnd.enabled
-
Checks by Drag & Drop support for views. True is regard as default
(no matter what jdk's version). False value disallows Drag & Drop in
all views.
customDelete
-
Nodes returing Boolean.TRUE from getValue("customDelete") are assumed to
provide their own confirmation dialog for delete action and explorer will not show
default one when they are deleted.
slowRename
-
Nodes returing Boolean.TRUE from getValue("slowRename") are expected
to have potentially slow implemenation of setName. Explorer views
rather process in-place rename in background for such nodes.
Question (exec-component):
Is execution of your code influenced by any (string) property
of any of your components?
Answer:
org.openide.explorer.VisualizerNode.prefetchCount
-
Setting this property to integer number controls prefetching of nodes
when VisualizerChildren are constructed (prefetchCount = 0 disables
prefetching).
The prefetching should eliminate "bounce" effect (see #144718) in lazy
implementation which is caused by the fact that there exist keys without
nodes. In such case "dummy" nodes are created and remove event is fired.
This undesirable effect is eliminated by prefetching selected number of
nodes so "dummy" nodes are detected and removed in advance before any
visualization occurs.
Question (exec-ant-tasks):
Do you define or register any ant tasks that other can use?
Answer:
XXX no answer for exec-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: Yes,TreeView calls via reflection to openide's Window System API
and to Actions API to allow use Explorer API as standalone library.
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:
Also TreeTableView offers sort by the values of explored properties if type
of value implements Comparable interface, it's based on semi-private API
TreeTableViewSortingAPI.
Question (exec-threading):
What threading models, if any, does your module adhere to? How the
project behaves with respect to threading?
Answer:
XXX no answer for exec-threading
Question (security-policy): Does your functionality require modifications to the standard policy file? Answer:XXX no answer for security-policy
Question (security-grant): Does your code grant additional rights to some other code? Answer:XXX no answer for security-grant
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:
Same formats as during clipboard access.
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:
The module servers as a bridge between nodes and the clipboard. It takes what
Nodes provide
(Node.clipboardCopy,
Node.clipboardCut) and
inserts them into clipboard (as part of Copy/Cut action) and also retrive the
content of clipboard and pases it to
Node.getPasteTypes(Transferable))
during paste action.
Performance and Scalability
-
Question (perf-startup):
Does your module run any code on startup?
Answer:
No.
Question (perf-exit):
Does your module run any code on exit?
Answer:
No.
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:
No answer
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:
No answer
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 answer
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:
No, only the small dialogs, e.g. Rename, Navigator, etc.
Question (perf-menus):
Does your module use dynamically updated context menus, or
context-sensitive actions with complicated and slow enablement logic?
Answer:
No answer
Question (perf-spi):
How the performance of the plugged in code will be enforced?
Answer:
XXX no answer for perf-spi