A very important part of the text package is the View class. As the name
suggests it represents a view of the text model, or a piece of the text
model. It is this class that is responsible for the look of the text component.
The view is not intended to be some completely new thing that one must learn,
but rather is much like a lightweight component. In fact, the original View
implementation was a lightweight component. There were several reasons why
the Component implementation was abandoned in favor of an alternative.
There was barely had time to get the lightweight component support in the
1.1 version of the JDK. There simply wasn't time to lighten up the component
further to where it would need to be to be used for text purposes. The additions
made to JComponent increased the memory consumption, and as it currently stands
it's much too heavy for representing text.
The layout semantics aren't quite right for text, and changing the current layout
semantics of component might break existing applications.
The component api uses integers, but in 1.2 one can use floating point device
independent coordinates. An api that works in both 1.1 and 1.2 would be convenient
for minimizing transition difficulties. The View class uses the Shape interface
and float arguments to enable View implementations for the Java 2 platform v1.2 and later while
still functioning in the older 1.1 JDK.
By default, a view is very light. It contains a reference to the parent
view from which it can fetch many things without holding state, and it
contains a reference to a portion of the model (Element). A view does not
have to exactly represent an element in the model, that is simply a typical
and therefore convenient mapping. A view can alternatively maintain a couple
of Position objects to maintain it's location in the model (i.e. represent
a fragment of an element). This is typically the result of formatting where
views have been broken down into pieces. The convenience of a substantial
relationship to the element makes it easier to build factories to produce the
views, and makes it easier to keep track of the view pieces as the model is
changed and the view must be changed to reflect the model. Simple views
therefore represent an Element directly and complex views do not.
A view has the following responsibilities:
Participate in layout.
The view has a setSize method which is like doLayout and setSize in
Component combined. The view has a preferenceChanged method which is
like invalidate in Component except that one can invalidate just one axis
and the child requesting the change is identified.
A View expresses the size that it would like to be in terms of three
values, a minimum, a preferred, and a maximum span. Layout in a view is
can be done independantly upon each axis. For a properly functioning View
implementation, the minimum span will be <= the preferred span which in turn
will be <= the maximum span.
The setSize method should be prepared to be called a number of times
(i.e. It may be called even if the size didn't change). The setSize method
is generally called to make sure the View layout is complete prior to trying
to perform an operation on it that requires an up-to-date layout. A views
size should always be set to a value within the minimum and maximum
span specified by that view. Additionally, the view must always call the
preferenceChanged method on the parent if it has changed the values for the
layout it would like, and expects the parent to honor. The parent View is
not required to recognize a change until the preferenceChanged has been sent.
This allows parent View implementations to cache the child requirements if
desired. The calling sequence looks something like the following:
The exact calling sequence is up to the layout functionality of
the parent view (if the view has any children). The view may collect
the preferences of the children prior to determining what it will give
each child, or it might iteratively update the children one at a time.
Render a portion of the model.
This is done in the paint method, which is pretty much like a component
paint method. Views are expected to potentially populate a fairly large
tree. A View has the following semantics for rendering:
The view gets it's allocation from the parent at paint time, so it
must be prepared to redo layout if the allocated area is different from
what it is prepared to deal with.
The coordinate system is the same as the hosting Component (i.e. the
Component returned by the getContainer method).
This means a child view lives in the same coordinate system as the parent
view unless the parent has explicitly changed the coordinate system.
To schedule itself to be repainted a view can call repaint on the hosting
Component.
The default is to not clip the children. It is more effecient
to allow a view to clip only if it really feels it needs clipping.
The Graphics object given is not initialized in any way. A view should
set any settings needed.
A View is inherently transparent. While a view may render into it's
entire allocation, typically a view does not. Rendering is performed by
tranversing down the tree of View implementations. Each View is responsible
for rendering it's children. This behavior is depended upon for thread
safety. While view implementations do not necessarily have to be implemented
with thread safety in mind, other view implementations that do make use of
concurrency can depend upon a tree traversal to guarantee thread safety.
The order of views relative to the model is up to the implementation.
Although child views will typically be arranged in the same order that they
occur in the model, they may be visually arranged in an entirely different
order. View implementations may have Z-Order associated with them if the
children are overlapping.
Translate between the model and view coordinate systems.
Because the view objects are produced from a factory and therefore cannot
necessarily be counted upon to be in a particular pattern, one must be able
to perform translation to properly locate spatial representation of the model.
The methods for doing this are:
The layout must be valid prior to attempting to make the translation.
The translation is not valid, and must not be attempted while changes
are being broadcasted from the model via a DocumentEvent.
Respond to changes from the model.
If the overall view is represented by many pieces (which is the best situation
if one want to be able to change the view and write the least amount of new code),
it would be impractical to have a huge number of DocumentListeners. If each
view listened to the model, only a few would actually be interested in the
changes broadcasted at any given time. Since the model has no knowledge of
views, it has no way to filter the broadcast of change information. The view
hierarchy itself is instead responsible for propagating the change information.
At any level in the view hierarchy, that view knows enough about it's children to
best distribute the change information further. Changes are therefore broadcasted
starting from the root of the view hierarchy.
The methods for doing this are:
BadBreakWeight
The weight to indicate a view is a bad break
opportunity for the purpose of formatting.
static int
ExcellentBreakWeight
The weight to indicate a view supports breaking,
and this represents a very attractive place to
break.
static int
ForcedBreakWeight
The weight to indicate a view supports breaking,
and must be broken to be represented properly
when placed in a view that formats it's children
by breaking them.
static int
GoodBreakWeight
The weight to indicate a view supports breaking,
but better opportunities probably exist.
breakView(int axis,
int offset,
float pos,
float len)
Tries to break this view on the given axis.
void
changedUpdate(DocumentEvent e,
Shape a,
ViewFactory f)
Gives notification from the document that attributes were changed
in a location that this view is responsible for.
getViewFactory()
Fetches the ViewFactory implementation that is feeding
the view hierarchy.
int
getViewIndex(int pos,
Position.Bias b)
Returns the child view index representing the given position in
the model.
void
insert(int offs,
View v)
Inserts a single child view.
void
insertUpdate(DocumentEvent e,
Shape a,
ViewFactory f)
Gives notification that something was inserted into
the document in a location that this view is responsible for.
boolean
isVisible()
Returns a boolean that indicates whether
the view is visible or not.
modelToView(int p0,
Position.Bias b0,
int p1,
Position.Bias b1,
Shape a)
Provides a mapping from the document model coordinate space
to the coordinate space of the view mapped to it.
modelToView(int pos,
Shape a,
Position.Bias b)
Provides a mapping from the document model coordinate space
to the coordinate space of the view mapped to it.
abstract void
paint(Graphics g,
Shape allocation)
Renders using the given rendering surface and area on that
surface.
void
preferenceChanged(View child,
boolean width,
boolean height)
Child views can call this on the parent to indicate that
the preference has changed and should be reconsidered
for layout.
void
remove(int i)
Removes one of the children at the given position.
removeUpdate(DocumentEvent e,
Shape a,
ViewFactory f)
Gives notification that something was removed from the document
in a location that this view is responsible for.
void
replace(int offset,
int length,
View[] views)
Replace child views.
void
setParent(View parent)
Establishes the parent view for this view.
void
setSize(float width,
float height)
Sets the size of the view.
viewToModel(float x,
float y,
Shape a,
Position.Bias[] biasReturn)
Provides a mapping from the view coordinate space to the logical
coordinate space of the model.
The weight to indicate a view is a bad break
opportunity for the purpose of formatting. This
value indicates that no attempt should be made to
break the view into fragments as the view has
not been written to support fragmenting.
The weight to indicate a view supports breaking,
and must be broken to be represented properly
when placed in a view that formats it's children
by breaking them.
public void preferenceChanged(View child,
boolean width,
boolean height)
Child views can call this on the parent to indicate that
the preference has changed and should be reconsidered
for layout. By default this just propagates upward to
the next parent. The root view will call
revalidate on the associated text component.
Parameters:
child - the child view
width - true if the width preference has changed
height - true if the height preference has changed
Determines the desired alignment for this view along an
axis. By default this is simply centered.
Parameters:
axis - may be either View.X_AXIS or View.Y_AXIS
paint
public abstract void paint(Graphics g,
Shape allocation)
Renders using the given rendering surface and area on that
surface. The view may need to do layout and create child
views to enable itself to render into the given allocation.
Establishes the parent view for this view. This is
guaranteed to be called before any other methods if the
parent view is functioning properly. This is also
the last method called, since it is called to indicate
the view has been removed from the hierarchy as
well. If this is reimplemented,
super.setParent() should be called.
Parameters:
parent - the new parent, or null if the view is
being removed from a parent it was previously added
to
getViewCount
public int getViewCount()
Returns the number of views in this view. Since
the default is to not be a composite view this
returns 0.
public void replace(int offset,
int length,
View[] views)
Replace child views. If there are no views to remove
this acts as an insert. If there are no views to
add this acts as a remove. Views being removed will
have the parent set to null, and the internal reference
to them removed so that they can be garbage collected.
This is implemented to do nothing, because by default
a view has no children.
Parameters:
index - the starting index into the child views to insert
the new views. This should be a value >= 0 and <= getViewCount.
length - the number of existing child views to remove.
This should be a value >= 0 and <= (getViewCount() - offset).
views - the child views to add. This value can be null
to indicate no children are being added (useful to remove).
Returns the child view index representing the given position in
the model. By default a view has no children so this is implemented
to return -1 to indicate there is no valid child index for any
position.
Parameters:
pos - the position >= 0
Since:
1.3
getChildAllocation
public ShapegetChildAllocation(int index,
Shape a)
Fetches the allocation for the given child view.
This enables finding out where various views
are located, without assuming the views store
their location. This returns null since the
default is to not have any child views.
Parameters:
index - the index of the child, >= 0 && < getViewCount()
Provides a way to determine the next visually represented model
location that one might place a caret. Some views may not be visible,
they might not be in the same order found in the model, or they just
might not allow access to some of the locations in the model.
Parameters:
pos - the position to convert >= 0
a - the allocated region to render into
direction - the direction from the current position that can
be thought of as the arrow keys typically found on a keyboard.
This may be SwingConstants.WEST, SwingConstants.EAST,
SwingConstants.NORTH, or SwingConstants.SOUTH.
Returns:
the location within the model that best represents the next
location visual position.
public abstract int viewToModel(float x,
float y,
Shape a,
Position.Bias[] biasReturn)
Provides a mapping from the view coordinate space to the logical
coordinate space of the model. The biasReturn argument will be
filled in to indicate that the point given is closer to the next
character in the model or the previous character in the model.
Parameters:
x - the X coordinate >= 0
y - the Y coordinate >= 0
a - the allocated region to render into
Returns:
the location within the model that best represents the
given point in the view >= 0. The biasReturn argument will be
filled in to indicate that the point given is closer to the next
character in the model or the previous character in the model.
Gives notification that something was inserted into
the document in a location that this view is responsible for.
To reduce the burden to subclasses, this functionality is
spread out into the following calls that subclasses can
reimplement:
updateChildren is called
if there were any changes to the element this view is
responsible for. If this view has child views that are
represent the child elements, then this method should do
whatever is necessary to make sure the child views correctly
represent the model.
forwardUpdate is called
to forward the DocumentEvent to the appropriate child views.
updateLayout is called to
give the view a chance to either repair it's layout, to reschedule
layout, or do nothing.
Parameters:
e - the change information from the associated document
a - the current allocation of the view
f - the factory to use to rebuild if the view has children
Gives notification that something was removed from the document
in a location that this view is responsible for.
To reduce the burden to subclasses, this functionality is
spread out into the following calls that subclasses can
reimplement:
updateChildren is called
if there were any changes to the element this view is
responsible for. If this view has child views that are
represent the child elements, then this method should do
whatever is necessary to make sure the child views correctly
represent the model.
forwardUpdate is called
to forward the DocumentEvent to the appropriate child views.
updateLayout is called to
give the view a chance to either repair it's layout, to reschedule
layout, or do nothing.
Parameters:
e - the change information from the associated document
a - the current allocation of the view
f - the factory to use to rebuild if the view has children
Gives notification from the document that attributes were changed
in a location that this view is responsible for.
To reduce the burden to subclasses, this functionality is
spread out into the following calls that subclasses can
reimplement:
updateChildren is called
if there were any changes to the element this view is
responsible for. If this view has child views that are
represent the child elements, then this method should do
whatever is necessary to make sure the child views correctly
represent the model.
forwardUpdate is called
to forward the DocumentEvent to the appropriate child views.
updateLayout is called to
give the view a chance to either repair it's layout, to reschedule
layout, or do nothing.
Parameters:
e - the change information from the associated document
a - the current allocation of the view
f - the factory to use to rebuild if the view has children
Fetches the attributes to use when rendering. By default
this simply returns the attributes of the associated element.
This method should be used rather than using the element
directly to obtain access to the attributes to allow
view-specific attributes to be mixed in or to allow the
view to have view-specific conversion of attributes by
subclasses.
Each view should document what attributes it recognizes
for the purpose of rendering or layout, and should always
access them through the AttributeSet returned by this method.
breakView
public ViewbreakView(int axis,
int offset,
float pos,
float len)
Tries to break this view on the given axis. This is
called by views that try to do formatting of their
children. For example, a view of a paragraph will
typically try to place its children into row and
views representing chunks of text can sometimes be
broken down into smaller pieces.
This is implemented to return the view itself, which
represents the default behavior on not being
breakable. If the view does support breaking, the
starting offset of the view returned should be the
given offset, and the end offset should be less than
or equal to the end offset of the view being broken.
Parameters:
axis - may be either View.X_AXIS or View.Y_AXIS
offset - the location in the document model
that a broken fragment would occupy >= 0. This
would be the starting offset of the fragment
returned.
pos - the position along the axis that the
broken view would occupy >= 0. This may be useful for
things like tab calculations.
len - specifies the distance along the axis
where a potential break is desired >= 0.
Returns:
the fragment of the view that represents the
given span, if the view can be broken. If the view
doesn't support breaking behavior, the view itself is
returned.
Create a view that represents a portion of the element.
This is potentially useful during formatting operations
for taking measurements of fragments of the view. If
the view doesn't support fragmenting (the default), it
should return itself.
Parameters:
p0 - the starting offset >= 0. This should be a value
greater or equal to the element starting offset and
less than the element ending offset.
p1 - the ending offset > p0. This should be a value
less than or equal to the elements end offset and
greater than the elements starting offset.
public int getBreakWeight(int axis,
float pos,
float len)
Determines how attractive a break opportunity in
this view is. This can be used for determining which
view is the most attractive to call breakView
on in the process of formatting. A view that represents
text that has whitespace in it might be more attractive
than a view that has no whitespace, for example. The
higher the weight, the more attractive the break. A
value equal to or lower than BadBreakWeight
should not be considered for a break. A value greater
than or equal to ForcedBreakWeight should
be broken.
This is implemented to provide the default behavior
of returning BadBreakWeight unless the length
is greater than the length of the view in which case the
entire view represents the fragment. Unless a view has
been written to support breaking behavior, it is not
attractive to try and break the view. An example of
a view that does support breaking is LabelView.
An example of a view that uses break weight is
ParagraphView.
Parameters:
axis - may be either View.X_AXIS or View.Y_AXIS
pos - the potential location of the start of the
broken view >= 0. This may be useful for calculating tab
positions.
len - specifies the relative length from pos
where a potential break is desired >= 0.
Returns:
the weight, which should be a value between
ForcedBreakWeight and BadBreakWeight.
Fetches the container hosting the view. This is useful for
things like scheduling a repaint, finding out the host
components font, etc. The default implementation
of this is to forward the query to the parent view.
Fetches the ViewFactory implementation that is feeding
the view hierarchy. Normally the views are given this
as an argument to updates from the model when they
are most likely to need the factory, but this
method serves to provide it at other times.
Updates the child views in response to receiving notification
that the model changed, and there is change record for the
element this view is responsible for. This is implemented
to assume the child views are directly responsible for the
child elements of the element this view represents. The
ViewFactory is used to create child views for each element
specified as added in the ElementChange, starting at the
index specified in the given ElementChange. The number of
child views representing the removed elements specified are
removed.
Parameters:
ec - The change information for the element this view
is responsible for. This should not be null if this method
gets called.
e - the change information from the associated document
f - the factory to use to build child views
Returns:
whether or not the child views represent the
child elements of the element this view is responsible
for. Some views create children that represent a portion
of the element they are responsible for, and should return
false. This information is used to determine if views
in the range of the added elements should be forwarded to
or not.
Forward the given DocumentEvent to the child views
that need to be notified of the change to the model.
If there were changes to the element this view is
responsible for, that should be considered when
forwarding (i.e. new child views should not get
notified).
Parameters:
ec - changes to the element this view is responsible
for (may be null if there were no changes).
e - the change information from the associated document
a - the current allocation of the view
f - the factory to use to rebuild if the view has children
Forward the DocumentEvent to the give child view. This
simply messages the view with a call to insertUpdate,
removeUpdate, or changedUpdate depending upon the type
of the event. This is called by
forwardUpdate to forward
the event to children that need it.
Parameters:
v - the child view to forward the event to.
e - the change information from the associated document
a - the current allocation of the view
f - the factory to use to rebuild if the view has children
Update the layout in response to receiving notification of
change from the model. This is implemented to call preferenceChanged
to reschedule a new layout if the ElementChange record is not null.
Parameters:
ec - changes to the element this view is responsible
for (may be null if there were no changes).
e - the change information from the associated document
a - the current allocation of the view
f - the factory to use to rebuild if the view has children
Provides a mapping from the document model coordinate space
to the coordinate space of the view mapped to it. This is
implemented to default the bias to Position.Bias.Forward
which was previously implied.
Parameters:
pos - the position to convert >= 0
a - the allocated region to render into
Returns:
the bounding box of the given position is returned
Throws:
BadLocationException - if the given position does
not represent a valid location in the associated document
Submit a bug or feature For further API reference and developer documentation, see Java 2 SDK SE Developer Documentation. That documentation contains more detailed, developer-targeted descriptions, with conceptual overviews, definitions of terms, workarounds, and working code examples.
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