General Information
Question (arch-what):
What is this project good for?
Answer:
Nodes API serves as the main aparatus for visualisation of objects
in NetBeans. Nodes augment objects with standard aspects used for
visualisation (e.g. name, displayName, icons, set of proerties,
subnodes hierarchy, etc.) Once a Node is defined for given object
it can be visualised using diferent views e.g. trees, lists, tables etc.
Descripion of nodes can be found
here.
Question (arch-overall):
Describe the overall architecture.
WARNING: Question with id="arch-overall" has not been answered!
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.
Question (arch-time):
What are the time estimates of the work?
WARNING: Question with id="arch-time" has not been answered!
Question (arch-quality):
How will the quality
of your code be tested and
how are future regressions going to be prevented?
WARNING: Question with id="arch-quality" has not been answered!
Question (arch-where):
Where one can find sources for your module?
WARNING: Question with id="arch-where" has not been answered!
Project and platform dependencies
Question (dep-nb):
What other NetBeans projects and modules does this one depend on?
Answer:
UtilitiesAPI
The default answer to this question is:
These modules are required in project.xml:
-
org.openide.awt
-
The module is needed for compilation.
The module is used during runtime.
Specification version
7.33
is required.
-
DialogsAPI
-
The module is needed for compilation.
The module is used during runtime.
Specification version
6.2
is required.
-
FilesystemsAPI
-
The module is needed for compilation.
-
UtilitiesAPI
-
The module is needed for compilation.
The module is used during runtime.
Specification version
8.0
is required.
-
LookupAPI
-
The module is needed for compilation.
The module is used during runtime.
Specification version
8.0
is required.
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:
1.3
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:
The API portion is inside openide.jar
Question (deploy-nbm):
Can you deploy an NBM via the Update Center?
Answer:
Yes (as part of openide.nbm and core.nbm).
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:
Must be installed in the shared location as it is part of the very core of NetBeans.
Question (deploy-packages):
Are packages of your module made inaccessible by not declaring them
public?
Answer:
NodesAPI
is a public package.
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)?
WARNING: Question with id="deploy-dependencies" has not been answered!
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:
Defines and implements NetBeans NodesAPI.
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:
Nodes API itself does not use any kind of settings. Displayed nodes are
persisted using serialization by default, but this can be changed
by developers by providing own persistence mechanism.
Question (compat-deprecation):
How the introduction of your project influences functionality
provided by previous version of the product?
WARNING: Question with id="compat-deprecation" has not been answered!
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 ?
WARNING: Question with id="resources-preferences" has not been answered!
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:
Nodes use lookup to communicate with other components. Each node
contains own lookup wich is used for augmenting nodes with extended
functionality and data. Nodes do not depend on content of other Lookups.
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:
No
Question (exec-component):
Is execution of your code influenced by any (string) property
of any of your components?
Answer:
BeanNode
which serves for default visualisation of JavaBeans uses the
"helpID", "propertiesHelpID" and "expertHelpID" form BeanDescriptor of given bean.
to link with help files.
helpID
- For providing help sets for JavaBeans
propertiesHelpID
- For providing help sets for JavaBeans proerties
expertHelpID
- For providing help sets for JavaBeans properties
Question (exec-ant-tasks):
Do you define or register any ant tasks that other can use?
WARNING: Question with id="exec-ant-tasks" has not been answered!
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:
BeanNode
obviously depends on reflection to get values of beans
properties, which shouldn't be considered lack of API. Same
applyies to
PropertySupport and
IndexedPropertySupport.
ProjectManagerMutex
-
A test in Children checks that
org.netbeans.api.project.ProjectManager.mutex()
is not held by the current
thread when acquiring Children.MUTEX.
Since this module cannot depend on the module providing ProjectManager
,
the test uses reflection to retrieve the ProjectManager.mutex()
instance.
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:
Yes.
- instanceof: 37 occurences
- isAssgnableFrom: 5 occurences
- isInstance: 3 occurences
Question (exec-threading):
What threading models, if any, does your module adhere to? How the
project behaves with respect to threading?
WARNING: Question with id="exec-threading" has not been answered!
Question (security-policy):
Does your functionality require modifications to the standard policy file?
WARNING: Question with id="security-policy" has not been answered!
Question (security-grant):
Does your code grant additional rights to some other code?
WARNING: Question with id="security-grant" has not been answered!
Format of files and protocols
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:
Not directly. State of nodes can be serialized as result of
window system serialization.
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 visiualized objects and complexity of the visualised
objects.
Question (perf-limit):
Are there any hard-coded or practical limits in the number or size of
elements your code can handle?
Answer:
All nodes are held in memory during the IDE runtime, there is no
swap/cache mechanism for nodes.
Question (perf-mem):
How much memory does your component consume? Estimate
with a relation to the number of windows, etc.
Answer:
Fully initialized node can contain relatively big amount of
other objects e.g. objects in lookups, properties, etc. Depending on
th Node's subclass.
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:
No
Question (perf-menus):
Does your module use dynamically updated context menus, or
context-sensitive actions with complicated and slow enablement logic?
Answer:
No
Question (perf-spi):
How the performance of the plugged in code will be enforced?
WARNING: Question with id="perf-spi" has not been answered!