taverna-contextual-views-api/src/main/java/org/apache/taverna/workbench/ui/views/contextualviews/activity/ContextualViewFactory.java

/*
* Licensed to the Apache Software Foundation (ASF) under one
* or more contributor license agreements. See the NOTICE file
* distributed with this work for additional information
* regarding copyright ownership. The ASF licenses this file
* to you under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the
* "License"); you may not use this file except in compliance
* with the License. You may obtain a copy of the License at
*
* http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
*
* Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing,
* software distributed under the License is distributed on an
* "AS IS" BASIS, WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY
* KIND, either express or implied. See the License for the
* specific language governing permissions and limitations
* under the License.
*/

package org.apache.taverna.workbench.ui.views.contextualviews.activity;

import java.util.List;

import org.apache.taverna.workbench.ui.views.contextualviews.ContextualView;

/**
 * Defines a factory class that when associated with a selected object creates a
 * {@link ContextualView} for that selection.
 * <p>
 * This factory acts as an SPI to find {@link ContextualView}s for a given
 * Activity and other workflow components.
 * </p>
 * 
 * @author Stuart Owen
 * @author Ian Dunlop
 * @author Stian Soiland-Reyes
 * 
 * 
 * @param <SelectionType>
 *            - the selection type this factory is associated with
 * 
 * @see ContextualView
 * @see ContextualViewFactoryRegistry
 */
public interface ContextualViewFactory<SelectionType> {
	/**
	 * @param selection
	 *            - the object for which ContextualViews needs to be generated
	 * @return instance of {@link ContextualView}
	 */
	public List<ContextualView> getViews(SelectionType selection);

	/**
	 * Used by the SPI system to find the correct factory that can handle the
	 * given object type. 
	 * 
	 * @param selection
	 * @return true if this factory relates to the given selection type
	 * @see ContextualViewFactoryRegistry
	 */
	public boolean canHandle(Object selection);
}