Symbols are the starting point of a display (diagram
or dashboard). A symbol is a self-contained graphic object that represents
a physical or conceptual element in the underlying application. For
example, symbols can represent trucks, factories, network elements,
dials or gauges. They have built in behavior which means that they
react dynamically to data changes or user interaction.
A symbol and its behavior are not defined by code but
in a CSS (Cascading Style Sheet) file that contains a description
of the JavaBeans™
to use, their
settings and logic. At run time, a generic engine instantiates the
right class and configures the created instances as specified in the
CSS file. For better performance, or if such symbols can be frozen
for a given application, it is also possible to generate Java™
source
code corresponding to these symbols.