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Mobility Designer 2 - Quick Guide

Abstract

This document describes classes, terms and algorithms used in Designer2.

Description

TypeID

• identifies each type in the design-time
• 3 kind - component (Class, Displayable, ...), primitive (boolean, int, String), enum (AlertType)
• see: MidpTypes, GamesTypes for primitive declaration; or each CD

ComponentRegistry

• holds component descriptors, accessible from DesignDocument.getComponentRegistry
• one per each projectType

ComponentDescriptor (CD)

• registered in layer.xml
• describes components
• getTypeDescriptor - describes inheritance
• getDeclaredPropertyDescriptors - describes declared properties using PropertyDescriptor
• createPresenters/gatherPresenters - gathers all presenters
• use gatherPresenter for removing presenters from previous CDs (using DocumentSupport.removePresneterOfClass)
• postInitilialize - allows single-time execute post initialization when a component is created using DD.createComponent

PropertyDescriptor

• identified by property name, has: its type, default value, allowsNull, allowsUserCode, version

ComponentProducer

• registered in layer.xml
• is the one should in palette
• has createComponent method for executing it
• one component is main - that is used during Drag&Drop for resolving its acceptability by a target
• producer can create multiple components and change properties

PrimitiveDescriptorFactory

• registered as a service in global lookup
• resolves a primitive descriptor for each primitive type using TypeID.getString as indentifier
• PrimitiveDescriptor describes a (de)serialization of a property value and validity of an instances (values passed to PropertyValue)

DesignDocument (DD)

• represents the design
• DD.getRootComponent returns a top-most component
• DD.createComponent
• DD.getTransactionManager
• DD.getListenerManager

TransactionManager (TM)

• DD.getTransactionManager().readAccess (Runnable) - execute in read access
• DD.getTransactionManager().writeAccess (Runnable) - execute in write access

ListenerManager (TM)

• allows to add/remove design/presenter change listener - addDesignListener (listener, DesignEventFilter)
• DesignEventFilter specifies the range of changes that you are interested in

DesignComponent (DC)

• DC.readProperty, DC.writeProperty - read/write uses PropertyValue as a wrapper around real value

PropertyValue

• created by PropertyValue.create*
• see: MidpTypes for creating/handling values of primitive types
• is immutable object
• use immitable objects (like String, int, long) for representing a primitive types to prevent property modification outside of the write access

Presenter

• presenter cannot be shared
• various templates are available in midp module
• TBD

DataObjectContext (DOC)

• 1-2-1 mapped with a DesignDataObject
• single DataObject may have various DesignDocument but only one is active/loaded
• DOC.addDocumentAwareness method registers listener on changes of active document in context.

The listener is represented by DesignDocumentAwareness - setDesigDocument is called. The method is called automatically after the listener registration is done.

DataEditorViewFactory

• register as a service in global lookup
• creates a view for a particular context (usually based on DataObjectContext.getProjectType)
• view is represented by DataEditorView which is similar to TopComponent
• since you have a context, then you can register a document-awareness listener, then you have a document, then you can work with its data

DataEditorView

• see vmd.game.integration package
• since the document changes can be invokes even outside of AWT thread then you have to keep a track of changes (e.g.: dirty presenter pattern) and then invoke SwingUtilities.invokeLater where you lock a document for read access and do the update of all dirty presenters

threads

• Do not even do "SwingUtilities.invokeAndWait" within the read/write access on document/registry/...
• Acquire locks of all other frameworks before.

AcessController (AC)

• registered as a service in global lookup
• Allows global control of the design
• AC.notifyEventFired is called after all DesignListener and PresenterListener has been called
• AC.notifyEventFiring is called before
• runInWriteAccess - called to wrap the write access - allows to put your locking mechanism in to the document locks - prevents deadlocks

undo/redo

• works automatically
• if you need to add an external (non-model specific) UndoableEdit - then it has to be "not-significant" and has to be added using DD.getTransactionManager.addUndoableEdit

(de)serialization

• works automatically
• using DataSerializer (in global lookup) you can plug-in additional data serialization

file template

• to see a first design you have to have a file template registered in layer
• template consists of: .java and .vmd file - see: vmd.game.integration.res.emptygame_*.template files
• there is a one of two hack here - the component used as a root component of a document has to have new TypeID (Kind.COMPONENT, "#Root") as a TypeID. Otherwise it will not be possible to created a empty document as a fallback in case of error during deserialization

component descriptors

• see: vmd.game.integration.components.* (especially)

support classes

• DocumentSupport - support methods for generic manipulation with document structure
• ArraySupport - support methods for PropertyValues of an array type
• MidpDocumentSupport - support methods for MIDP document

InfoPresenter

• adds an ability of a displayName and icon to a component
• created by: InfoPresenter.create* methods
• used by various presenter (which depends on it) - FlowInfoNodePresneter, InspectorFolderPresenter.create, ...

Inspector

• InspectorFolderPresenter.create
• TBD

Properties

• two kinds - basic and advanced
• see: Displayable.createPropertiesPresenter method
• TBD

Flow*Presenter

• TBD

Actions

• visibility definition - see: MidpActionsSupport.addCommonActionsPresenters
• New/Add - defined AddActionPresenter.create("New", 10, CommandCD.TYPEID), //NOI18N //TODO Localization
• Delete - DeleteDependencyPresenter: dependency on parent or a reference in a property, autonullable properties; DeletePresenter: setting custom deletion and user/general indelible
• TBD

CodeGenerator

• parameter represents a method parameters
• setters represents setter and constructor
• CodeWriter - code writer with auto-indentation
• MultiGuardedSection - represents a multiguarded section (MGS.create, MGS.getWriter ().write().commit(), MGS.switchToEditable (), MGS.switchToGuarded, MGS.close
• see: DisplayableCD.createSetterPresenter
• TBD

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contact: Karol Harazlak