Overview | Package | Class | Use | Tree | Deprecated | Index | Help
| org.netbeans.modules.editor.codetemplates/1 1.2.22
PREV NEXT | FRAMES NO FRAMES

# NetBeans Editor Code Templates

See:
Description

Editor Code Templates
org.netbeans.lib.editor.codetemplates.api |
org.netbeans.lib.editor.codetemplates.spi |

It is a module located under /cvs/editor/codetemplates directory.

It consists of

- API in org.netbeans.lib.editor.codetemplates.api
- SPI in org.netbeans.lib.editor.codetemplates.spi
- Implementation in org.netbeans.lib.editor.codetemplates

Code Templates define CodeTemplatesAPI.

### What is New (see all changes)?

- Jul 27 '05 Editor Code Templates API created

  Editor Code Templates API was created.

### Use Cases

##### Code Template Parameters

One of the main benefits of the code templates is their parametrization which allows to substitute the default values for the parameters before the final insertion and it also allows the user to modify these default values explicitly after the code template gets inserted into the document.
The parameters are marked in the code template's text by `${...}`.
Parameters of the same name benefit from automatic replication. Once the template gets pasted into the document all the parameter's occurrences get replaced by parameter's default value.
The first parameter's occurrence gets selected.
The user can now replace the default value. If the user does so the new value gets replicated to all the other occurrences of this parameter automatically.

##### Mime-type specific operation

Each code template needs to find the default values for its parameters before it gets inserted into the text.
Sometimes it's enough to just specify the default value in the template's text but usually the default value gets determined from the context of insertion.
There is an intent to create a mime-type specific code template processor that would be registered per mime-type. There could be even more than one such processors processing the template in a specific order.

##### Parameter hints

Besides parameter's name the template processors may need additional hints of how to find a default value for the parameter.
For example java code template's parameter may be an `index` parameter which means that the infrastructure should fill in a fresh index variable e.g. `i`.
Or the parameter can only be of a certain java type such as in the case of iterating through a collection the type must be subtype of `java.util.Collection`.
These requirements could be specified as additional hints to the parameters e.g. `${i index}` or `${c instanceof=java.util.Collection}`.
The hints allow string literals to support arbitrary explicit default values specifications e.g. `${x default="Hello world"}`.
The '{' and '}' have no special meaning inside the string literal.
The '"' char is allowed to be used by escaping `${x default="\"quoted string\""}`.

##### Temporary Code Templates

The Code Completion functionality allows to build temporary Code Templates functionality if it could build a temporary template for completing of the method parameters. The parameters could be completed one by one by tabbing and the Code Templates framework would fill in proper default values just like it does for regular templates.

##### Insert Text Building and Updating

The parametrized text of the code template first gets parsed and the parameters get their default values which by default are the names of the parameters. The code template processor are then called to update this default value.
The new java infrastructure being developed would benefit from the possibility to obtain the full string containing the skeleton of the code template (without parameters) with the present default values. It can take that string and locally parse it to find out types of local variables used in the particular template and fill in dependent variable types.

##### Parameter Editability

Certain part of the code template may change text but it should not be edited by the user. For example when iterating over collection given as a parameter the collection may be generics-ed by additional type. The iterator's variable type then also needs to generics-ed with the same type.
The iterator's type parameter should not be editable because this operation may be done automatically by the java code template processor.
There should be a hint `editable` having `true`/`false`.

### Exported Interfaces

This table lists all of the module exported APIs with defined stability classifications. It is generated based on answers to questions about the architecture of the module. Read them all...

##### Group of java interfaces

Interface Name | In/Out | Stability | Specified in What Document?
CodeTemplatesAPI | Exported | Stable |

##### Group of lookup interfaces

Interface Name | In/Out | Stability | Specified in What Document?

### Implementation Details

##### Where are the sources for the module?

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

##### What do other modules need to do to declare a dependency on this one?

    OpenIDE-Module-Module-Dependencies: org.netbeans.modules.editor.codetemplates/1 > 1.2.22

Read more about the implementation in the answers to architecture questions.

Overview | Package | Class | Use | Tree | Deprecated | Index | Help
| org.netbeans.modules.editor.codetemplates/1 1.2.22
PREV NEXT | FRAMES NO FRAMES

Built on December 7 2006. | Portions Copyright 1997-2005 Sun Microsystems, Inc. All rights reserved.