*
* Having this interface enables complex components (the client of the
* editor) such as JTree and
* JTable to allow any generic editor to
* edit values in a table cell, or tree cell, etc. Without this generic
* editor interface, JTable would have to know about specific editors,
* such as JTextField, JCheckBox, JComboBox,
* etc. In addition, without this interface, clients of editors such as
* JTable would not be able
* to work with any editors developed in the future by the user
* or a 3rd party ISV.
*
* To use this interface, a developer creating a new editor can have the
* new component implement the interface. Or the developer can
* choose a wrapper based approach and provide a companion object which
* implements the CellEditor interface (See
* JCellEditor for example). The wrapper approach
* is particularly useful if the user want to use a 3rd party ISV
* editor with JTable, but the ISV didn't implement the
* CellEditor interface. The user can simply create an object
* that contains an instance of the 3rd party editor object and "translate"
* the CellEditor API into the 3rd party editor's API.
*
* @see javax.swing.event.CellEditorListener
*
* @author Alan Chung
*/
public interface CellEditor {
/**
* Returns the value contained in the editor.
* @return the value contained in the editor
*/
public Object getCellEditorValue();
/**
* Asks the editor if it can start editing using anEvent.
* anEvent is in the invoking component coordinate system.
* The editor can not assume the Component returned by
* getCellEditorComponent is installed. This method
* is intended for the use of client to avoid the cost of setting up
* and installing the editor component if editing is not possible.
* If editing can be started this method returns true.
*
* @param anEvent the event the editor should use to consider
* whether to begin editing or not
* @return true if editing can be started
* @see #shouldSelectCell
*/
public boolean isCellEditable(EventObject anEvent);
/**
* Returns true if the editing cell should be selected, false otherwise.
* Typically, the return value is true, because is most cases the editing
* cell should be selected. However, it is useful to return false to
* keep the selection from changing for some types of edits.
* eg. A table that contains a column of check boxes, the user might
* want to be able to change those checkboxes without altering the
* selection. (See Netscape Communicator for just such an example)
* Of course, it is up to the client of the editor to use the return
* value, but it doesn't need to if it doesn't want to.
*
* @param anEvent the event the editor should use to start
* editing
* @return true if the editor would like the editing cell to be selected;
* otherwise returns false
* @see #isCellEditable
*/
public boolean shouldSelectCell(EventObject anEvent);
/**
* Tells the editor to stop editing and accept any partially edited
* value as the value of the editor. The editor returns false if
* editing was not stopped; this is useful for editors that validate
* and can not accept invalid entries.
*
* @return true if editing was stopped; false otherwise
*/
public boolean stopCellEditing();
/**
* Tells the editor to cancel editing and not accept any partially
* edited value.
*/
public void cancelCellEditing();
/**
* Adds a listener to the list that's notified when the editor
* stops, or cancels editing.
*
* @param l the CellEditorListener
*/
public void addCellEditorListener(CellEditorListener l);
/**
* Removes a listener from the list that's notified
*
* @param l the CellEditorListener
*/
public void removeCellEditorListener(CellEditorListener l);
}