oracle.ide.model
Interface Element

All Superinterfaces:

Data, Displayable

All Known Subinterfaces:

CmtModelNode, Container, DerivedLibrary, Document, Folder, JavaNode, Layout, Library, LibraryList, Node, Palette, PaletteItem, PalettePage, TextDocument, WorkEnvironment

All Known Implementing Classes:

AbstractDerivedLibrary, AbstractLibrary, Applications, BaseLayout, CategoryFolder, CmtFolder, ConnectionNode, DataContainer, DefaultContainer, DefaultDocument, DefaultElement, DefaultFolder, DefaultLibraryList, DefaultNode, GalleryElement, GalleryFolder, IdeLayout, JavaClassNode, JavaSourceNode, JLibraryList, Layouts, PropertiesContainer, RunProcess, TextNode, XMLDataContainer

public interface Element

extends Data, Displayable

The Element interface defines the protocol used by the IDE to communicate with data objects in order to display the objects in the UI. For example, objects that need to be shown in an ExplorerWindow will need to implement the Element interface.

Method Summary

Attributes	getAttributes() This method returns an Attributes object that encodes the attributes of the Element.
java.util.Iterator	getChildren() This method is part of the Element interface to provide a convenient way of getting an Iterator over any contained child Elements without having to test the object's type with the instanceof operator or having to downcast to a more specific type.
boolean	mayHaveChildren() This method is part of the Element interface to provide a convenient way of determining whether an object may have children without having to test the object's type with the instanceof operator or having to downcast to a more specific type.

Methods inherited from interface oracle.ide.model.Data

getData

Methods inherited from interface oracle.ide.model.Displayable

getIcon, getLongLabel, getShortLabel, getToolTipText, toString

Method Detail

mayHaveChildren

public boolean mayHaveChildren()

This method is part of the Element interface to provide a convenient way of determining whether an object may have children without having to test the object's type with the instanceof operator or having to downcast to a more specific type.

An implementation of Element that represents a leaf in a tree structure should return false from this method. An implementation of Element that could represent a non-leaf in a tree structure should return true from this method, even if it does not currently contain any children.

Returns:

true if this Element may contain child Elements.

getChildren

public java.util.Iterator getChildren()

This method is part of the Element interface to provide a convenient way of getting an Iterator over any contained child Elements without having to test the object's type with the instanceof operator or having to downcast to a more specific type.

An implementation of Element that represents a leaf in a tree structure should return null from this method. An implementation of Element that could represent a non-leaf in a tree structure should return either an Iterator over the child Elements or null if there are no children.

Returns:

an Iterator over any child Elements contained by this Element. If there are no children, null is returned.

getAttributes

public Attributes getAttributes()

This method returns an Attributes object that encodes the attributes of the Element. Changing the attribute settings on the return object changes the element attributes. Subclasses should use their super class attributes object to define their own attributes. This allows subclasses to inherit their super class attributes. If a subclass does not wish to inherit attributes, they should first call getAttributes().clear() and define new attributes.