The Symbol Compiler is a point-and-click interface to
manage the lifecycle of code-based symbols. Taking existing palettes
of symbols, it manages code generation, code review, compilation and
testing. It also keeps track of your previously generated and compiled
symbols to allow you to compile new versions of your symbols.
The symbols that are designed with the Symbol Editor
can be used directly in JViews Diagrammer applications to create live
diagrams and dashboards. Internally, these symbols are fully described
using Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) directives and are executable at
run time without any compilation. However, in some cases, it can be
interesting to use a slightly different approach, that is, have Java™
code
available instead of interpreted versions of symbols.
Here are a few cases of interest:
Improving the performance. With the
compiled version of a symbol, the design and internal logic of the
symbol are directly written in Java code, the execution is faster
and the footprint smaller.
Using symbols for object-oriented programming.
You can derive and specialize the symbols using your own Java code.
Using symbols within the pure JViews
Graphic Framework, when the added abstraction level of JViews Diagrammer
is not required. This is not possible with interpreted CSS-based symbols.
The following picture illustrates how CSS symbols as
well as generated and compiled symbols can be used in applications: