NetBeans Architecture Answers for EditorLibrary2Module module

General Information

Question (arch-what): What is this project good for?
Answer: The Editor Library 2 module is a set of official APIs and SPIs.
It replaces the original Editor Library with legacy APIs that were not properly structured and did not conform to the rules implied on the current NB APIs.
Question (arch-overall): Describe the overall architecture.
Answer: The editor functionality are mainly implementations of the Swing Text package APIs plus extension features such as Syntax Coloring or Word Matching.

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: Usecases of the editor-highlighting - Highlighting SPI can be found in its package overview.
Other usecases - TBD.
Question (arch-time): What are the time estimates of the work?
Answer: Most of the work should be ready in NetBeans 6.0.
Question (arch-quality): How will the quality of your code be tested and how are future regressions going to be prevented?
Answer: Code is accompanied with unit tests.
Question (arch-where): Where one can find sources for your module?
Answer:

The sources for the module are in NetBeans CVS in editor/lib2 directory.

Project and platform dependencies

Question (dep-nb): What other NetBeans projects and modules does this one depend on?
Answer:

These modules are required in project.xml:

• org.netbeans.modules.editor.mimelookup - The module is needed for compilation. The module is used during runtime. Specification version 1.5 is required.
• org.netbeans.modules.editor.settings - The module is needed for compilation. The module is used during runtime. Specification version 1.5 is required.
• org.netbeans.modules.editor.util - The module is needed for compilation. The module is used during runtime. Specification version 1.12 is required.
• org.netbeans.modules.lexer - The module is needed for compilation. The module is used during runtime. Specification version 1.7 is required.
• org.openide.dialogs - The module is needed for compilation. The module is used during runtime. Specification version 7.1 is required.
• org.openide.util - The module is needed for compilation. The module is used during runtime. Specification version 6.2 is required.
Question (dep-non-nb): What other projects outside NetBeans does this one depend on?
Answer: No non-NetBeans projects.
Question (dep-platform): On which platforms does your module run? Does it run in the same way on each?
Answer: The module is 100% pure Java and runs on any platform.
Question (dep-jre): Which version of JRE do you need (1.2, 1.3, 1.4, etc.)?
Answer: Needs at least JRE 1.5.
Question (dep-jrejdk): Do you require the JDK or is the JRE enough?
Answer: JRE is sufficient.

Deployment

Question (deploy-jar): Do you deploy just module JAR file(s) or other files as well?
Answer: No additional files.
Question (deploy-nbm): Can you deploy an NBM via the Update Center?
Answer: Yes.
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: Module can be installed anywhere.
Question (deploy-packages): Are packages of your module made inaccessible by not declaring them public?
Answer: Yes, where appropriate.
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:

OpenIDE-Module-Module-Dependencies: org.netbeans.modules.editor.lib2/1 > @SPECIFICATION-VERSION@

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: It conforms to the Swing Text Package API.
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: Yes.
Question (compat-deprecation): How the introduction of your project influences functionality provided by previous version of the product?
Answer: The APIs and SPIs in editor/lib2 module should become offical replacements for the legacy editor APIs that do not conform with the Netbeans API standards.

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: No.

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: No.
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: No.
Question (exec-ant-tasks): Do you define or register any ant tasks that other can use?
Answer: No.
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: No.
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: No.
Question (exec-threading): What threading models, if any, does your module adhere to? How the project behaves with respect to threading?
Answer:

Threading model of the EditorDocument adheres to javax.swing.text.Document interface. There can be multiple reader threads accessing the document simultaneously but only one mutating thread at the time.

All the UI-related tasks adhere to Swing/AWT conventions i.e. they must be performed in EQ thread.

Question (security-policy): Does your functionality require modifications to the standard policy file?
Answer: No.
Question (security-grant): Does your code grant additional rights to some other code?
Answer: No.

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: No files read/written to disk (file reading into editor document not handled here).
Question (format-dnd): Which protocols (if any) does your code understand during Drag & Drop?
Answer: None.
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:
• Editor just forwards the clipboard operation requests into javax.swing.text.JTextComponent's cut(), copy() and paste() methods.

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: Number of characters of the source file multiplied by 2 to respect 2 bytes for each unicode characters.
Each line separator adds another line element (about 96 bytes) plus a position object (48 bytes).
Question (perf-limit): Are there any hard-coded or practical limits in the number or size of elements your code can handle?
Answer: No explicit limits. Technically, the available memory size is the limit...
Question (perf-mem): How much memory does your component consume? Estimate with a relation to the number of windows, etc.
Answer: One average source file opened in the editor occupies roughly 500KB.
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: Opening a file in the editor can be a long task for large files.
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?
Answer: The listeners attached to text document should execute quickly. For copmlex tasks they should reschedule their work into another thread.