A symbol is made up from graphic elements, parameters,
conditions and vector or bitmap images. Each graphic element has attributes
which define its look and feel. A symbol is defined by the
IlvPaletteSymbol class. This class defines a symbol. It contains
all information necessary for CSS to create instances of the symbol
in a GUI application.
An IlvPaletteSymbol
instance
contains:
A
palette (
IlvPalette)
is a collection of
palette symbols (
IlvPaletteSymbol
).
A palette symbol represents the definition of the symbol. Instances
of the symbol based on the same definition may occur in the diagrammer
application. An instance of a symbol has a symbol descriptor (
IlvSymbolDescriptor)
which helps find the palette symbol that corresponds to this instance.
Inside a palette, the symbols are organized in a hierarchy
of
categories (
IlvPaletteCategory). Each palette has at least a root category.
The category path and the symbol name identify a symbol
within a palette. For example, Symbols.Controls.Dial
corresponds
to the Dial symbol inside the subcategory Controls of the root category
Symbols.
Part of the palette symbol definition indicates which
parameters are defined for the symbol. Symbols can have a different
behavior or appearance depending on the actual parameter values of
the symbol instance. The palette symbol contains the definition of
the formal parameter (
IlvPaletteSymbolParameter), while the actual value of a parameter can be queried
using
IlvSymbolDescriptor
for each instance
of the symbol.
Finally, the
palette
manager (
IlvPaletteManager) manages a collection of palettes. The palette manager
is only needed when you want to load or save palettes dynamically
in the user file system. If you need to load only one fixed palette,
it is more convenient to put the palette on the class path and load
the palette as resources of the application. This is explained in
the next section.
Note
An IlvPaletteManager must
be attached to a Rogue Wave® JViews Diagrammer
Designer application to follow the currently loaded palettes.