Using and Developing Locators: Evaluating your Toolkit


Some toolkits are easier than others to design NCLs--it depends on both the structure of the toolkit and the tools it provides.

Toolkits designed so that every object extends a common object (such as Bongo, where all components extend PlayerPanel) are easier to create NCLs for than those that don't. If a toolkit has a hierarchical tree, you can write a single NCL for the entire toolkit, and have the methods traverse the tree to find the correct object.

Toolkits that don't extend from a common object require a NCL for each base object. For example, the KL Group JClass toolkit does not use its own common superclass. This means that some object types may have no relationship to each other. For this toolkit, you have to define an NCL for each base class.

Another toolkit issue affecting ease of NCL development relates to the methods the toolkit provides. Utility methods for tasks such as retrieving x-y coordinates are specific to the toolkit, and can be very handy. If your toolkit doesn't provide many such utilities, you may have to write them yourself.




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