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        <title>NetBeans Selection Management Tutorial II&#8212;Using Nodes for NetBeans Platform 6.5</title>
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    <h1>NetBeans Selection Management Tutorial II&#8212;Using Nodes</h1>

    <p>The <a href="nbm-selection-1.html">previous tutorial</a> covered the basics
    of component-wide selection handling in NetBeans&#8212;how to provide objects from
    a <code><a href="http://wiki.netbeans.org/wiki/view/DevFaqWindowsTopComponent">TopComponent</a></code>'s
    <code><a href="http://wiki.netbeans.org/wiki/view/DevFaqLookup">Lookup</a></code>, and
    how to write other components that are sensitive to the <code>Lookup</code> of whatever
    component has focus.
    
    <p>This tutorial focuses on the <a href="https://netbeans.org/download/dev/javadoc/org-openide-nodes/overview-summary.html">Nodes API</a>, which makes it possible to do more granular
    views and selection than just component-level selection.  Of course, you could write
    a component that reads and writes into its own Lookup whatever it wants, and 
    provides more granular selection logic that way.  But the Nodes API makes it very
    easy to do this, and offers a number of advantages over doing it yourself.
    
      
    
   <p><b>Contents</b></p>
   
   <img  src="../images/articles/68/netbeans-stamp-65-67-68.gif" class="stamp" width="114" height="114" alt="Content on this page applies to NetBeans IDE 6.5, 6.7, 6.8" title="Content on this page applies to NetBeans IDE 6.5, 6.7, 6.8"> </p>
      <ul class="toc">
            <li><a href="#intro">Introduction to the Nodes API</a></li>
            <li><a href="#explorer">Creating an Explorer View</a></li>
            <li><a href="#nodes-and-children">Implementing Nodes and Node Children</a></li>
            <li><a href="#running">Running the Tutorial</a></li>
            <li><a href="#exploring">Exploring Explorer</a></li>
            <li><a href="#handling">Handling Multi-Selection</a></li>
            <li><a href="#review">Review of Concepts</a></li>
            <li><a href="#next">Next Steps</a></li>
       </ul>
         
<p><b>To follow this tutorial, you need the software and resources listed in the following 
table.</b></p>

  <table>
        <tbody>
            <tr>
                <th class="tblheader" scope="col">Software or Resource</th>
                <th class="tblheader" scope="col">Version Required</th>
            </tr>
            <tr>
                <td class="tbltd1"><a href="https://netbeans.org/downloads/index.html">NetBeans IDE</a></td>
                <td class="tbltd1">version 6.5 or above</td>
            </tr>
            <tr>
                <td class="tbltd1"><a href="http://java.sun.com/javase/downloads/index.jsp">Java Developer Kit (JDK)</a></td>
                <td class="tbltd1">Version 6 or<br/>version 5</td>
            </tr>
        </tbody>
    </table>
    
  <p class="tips">Optionally, for troubleshooting purposes, you
  can <a href="http://plugins.netbeans.org/PluginPortal/faces/PluginDetailPage.jsp?pluginid=3146">download the completed sample</a>.
  
    <p><h2 class="tutorial"><a name="intro"></a>Introduction to the Nodes API</h2>
    
    <p>The first advantage is that the Nodes API provides a <i>presentation layer</i>&#8212;a 
 layer between the data model being edited in some way, and the UI components
    that expose the data model to the user.  This is quite useful and powerful, as
    the same model may be presented in multiple ways, or with multiple UIs.
    
    <p>The second advantage is the Explorer API&#8212;the module <code>org.openide.explorer</code>
    provides a vast array of components&#8212;trees, lists, tree tables and more&#8212;which can
    render a Node and its children.
    
    <p>A <code>Node</code> is a generic hierarchical object&#8212;a <code>Node</code> has:
    <ul>
        <li>Children&#8212;Nodes in a hierarchy underneath it, that can be displayed in a tree</li>
        <li>Actions&#8212;An array of actions that can be displayed in a popup menu</li>
        <li>Display Name&#8212;A human-readable, localized display name that can be shown in a UI component</li>
        <li>Icon&#8212;An icon that can be shown in a UI component</li>
    </ul>
    
    <p>and <code>Node</code>s can fire changes in any of the above, and the explorer UI components
    will automatically update themselves.</p>
    
    <p>This is <i>not</i> to say that the content of the previous tutorial was useless&#8212;on 
    the contrary, it is the reason the Nodes API can work.  The reason:  
    <code>org.openide.nodes.Node</code> has a method, you guessed it, <code>getLookup()</code>.
    In fact what is happening when you change selection in the Projects tab in the IDE,
    for example, is...the Projects tab is a TopComponent.  It proxies the <code>Lookup</code>
    of whatever object(s) are currently selected in the tree&#8212;just as the
    <code>Utilities.actionsGlobalContext()</code> <code>Lookup</code> proxies whichever
    component is focused and fires changes when focus changes.
    
    <p>Thanks to the components in the Explorer API, it is very easy to create your own
    views of a tree of <code>Node</code>s, and have this type of proxying in your
    own components with very little code.  Viewer type components such as the 
    <code>MyViewer</code> component in the previous tutorial do not have to do anything
    special to be able to respond to selection changes in Explorer components&#8212;they
    will automatically be notified as selection changes.
    
  
        <p><h2 class="tutorial"><a name="explorer"></a>Creating an Explorer View</h2>
            The first thing you will do is some substantial modifications to your 
            <code>MyEditor</code> editor component.  This starts with opening it in the
            editor.
            
            <ol>
            <li>First, bring up the properties dialog for the My Editor project.
            On the Libraries tab, click the add button, and type &quot;BeanTreeView&quot;
            in the dialog.  Click OK once you see the Explorer & Property Sheet API listed,
            as shown below. This will add a dependency on the Explorer API module,
        so you can use classes from it.</p>
        <p>
        <img border="1" border="1" src="../images/tutorials/selection-2/add-deps-beantreeview-60.png"/>
        </li>
        
        <li>Next, delete the body of the action handler method: 
        <pre class=examplecode>
private void jButton1ActionPerformed(java.awt.event.ActionEvent evt) {                                         
}</pre>
        and delete the call to it from the constructor.
        This way, when you delete the button it is associated with, the handler method will be
        deleted too.
        </li>
        
        <li>Switch to the form designer, select all of the components, and 
        delete them.</li>
        
        <li>In the Component Inspector, right click the <code>TopComponent</code>
        node, and choose Set Layout &gt; BorderLayout, as shown below:</p>
    
     <img border="1" border="1" src="../images/tutorials/selection-2/border-layout-60.png"/>
       
    </li>
        
        <li>Click the <code>JScrollPane</code> button in the Component 
        Palette window and drop the scroll pane on the form&#8212;it will take
        up the entire form.  The secret here is that all of the Explorer UI
        components are subclasses of <code>JScrollPane</code>&#8212;so you can 
        simply change the instantiation code to create an explorer view 
        instead.</li>
        
        <li>Select your <code>JScrollPane</code>, right-click it,
        and choose Customize Code. Customize the initial line
        in the Code Customizer, by adding <code>new BeanTreeView()</code>
        as shown below:
        
        <p><img border="1" border="1" src="../images/tutorials/selection-2/custom-creation-60.png"/>
        
        <p><code>BeanTreeView</code>
        is a component from the Explorer API&#8212;a basic <code>JTree</code>-based
        view over a <code>Node</code> and its children, with built-in handling
        of popup menus, searching and more.</li>
        
        <li>Switch to the code editor and press Ctrl-Shift-I to import BeanTreeView, because
        the import statement needs to be added, as indicated below:</p>

<img border="1" src="../images/tutorials/selection-2/beantreeview-60.png"/>

</li>
        
        <li>The next step is to give your tree something to show.  Explorer UI
        components work like this:  When added to a container, they search that
        container and their ancestors until they find one that implements 
        <code>ExplorerManager.Provider</code>.  So you don't set the node to be viewed directly
        on the component&#8212;you set it on the component's manager.  This makes
        it possible to have multiple views, master/detail views and such, all
        managed by a single manager.  Add to the signature of MyEditor as follows:
        <pre class=examplecode>
public class MyEditor extends TopComponent implements ExplorerManager.Provider {</pre>
        Then press Ctrl-Shift-I to fix imports.  Keeping the caret in the signature
        line, a lightbulb glyph should appear in the margin.  Press Alt-Enter, and
        accept the hint &quot;Implement all abstract methods&quot;.  This will add one
        method, <code>getExplorerManager()</code>.  Implement it as follows:
        <pre class=examplecode>
private final ExplorerManager mgr = new ExplorerManager();
public ExplorerManager getExplorerManager() {
    return mgr;
}</pre>
        </li>
        
        <li>Now, since the goal is one component that can display multiple
        <code>APIObject</code>s, you need a <code>Node</code> or two to display in your component.
        Each one will own its own instance of <code>APIObject</code>.  So,
        right now you'll just add the code that will create a root node for
        your tree view.  Add the following line to the constructor:
        <pre class=examplecode>
mgr.setRootContext(new AbstractNode(new MyChildren()));</pre>
        This is the code that sets the root node for all of the explorer views
        that are child components of <code>MyEditor</code>.
        </li>
        <li>If you tried Fix Imports, you may have seen the error dialog telling
        you that neither <code>AbstractNode</code>, nor <code>MyChildren</code>
        could be resolved.  To resolve <code>AbstractNode</code>, you need to add
        one dependency, on the Nodes API module.  Right click the My Editor project,
        go to the Libraries page and click Add Dependency.  Type &quot;AbstractNode&quot; in
        the Add dialog, and when the item &quot;Nodes API&quot; in the list is
        selected, click OK or press Enter.</li>
        
        <li>Now, back in the source editor, press Ctrl-Shift-I to Fix Imports.  You
        will be notified that <code>MyChildren</code> could not be resolved.  That's
        okay&#8212;you're about to write it.</li>
    </ol>
    
    
    <p><h2 class="tutorial"><a name="nodes-and-children"></a>Implementing Nodes and Node Children</h2>
        <p>You'll notice you're using a class called <code>AbstractNode</code> above.  Despite
        its name, it is not an abstract class!  It is a utility implementation of 
        <code>org.openide.nodes.Node</code> which can save you some time and trouble&#8212;rather
        than implement Node yourself, you can just create an AbstractNode and pass it a 
        <code>Children</code> object which will provide child nodes for it, and then set
        its icon and display name as needed.  So it is a simple way to get a <code>Node</code>
        object to represent something, without needing to do any subclassing of <code>Node</code>
    itself.</p>
    
    <p>The next step is to implement <code>MyChildren</code>, so that there are subnodes
    underneath the initial node.
    
    <ol>
        <li>Right click the <code>org.myorg.myeditor</code> package in the My Editor 
        project, and choose New &gt; Java Class from the popup menu</li>
        
        <li>In the New Java Class wizard, name the class &quot;MyChildren&quot;, and click
        Finish or press Enter to create the class.</li>
        
        <li>Modify the signature of the class so it extends <code>Children.Keys</code>:
        <pre class=examplecode>
class MyChildren extends Children.Keys {</pre>
        </li>
        <li>Press Ctrl-Shift-I to Fix Imports</li>
        <li>Position the caret in the class signature line.  When the lightbulb glyph appears
        in the margin, press Alt-Enter and then Enter again to accept the hint &quot;Implement
        all Abstract Methods&quot;.  This will add a <code>createNodes (Object key)</code>
        method&#8212;this is where you will create the nodes that will be children of your root
        node.</li>
        <li>But first, you want to override one method&#8212;<code>addNotify</code>.  As with
        the <code>addNotify()</code> pattern in Swing components, <code>Children.Keys.addNotify()</code>
        is called the first time something pays attention to this Children object&#8212;the first
        time it is asked for its child nodes.  So you can delay creation of child Nodes until
        the user has really expanded the parent node in a view and needs to see them.  Position
        the caret somewhere in the source file and press Alt-Insert. Then choose 'Override Method...'.
        In the dialog that appears, expand 'Children', select the <code>addNotify()</code>
        method, and click OK or press Enter.</li>
        <li>Implement the <code>addNotify()</code> method as follows:
        <pre class=examplecode>
protected void addNotify() {
    APIObject[] objs = new APIObject[5];
    for (int i = 0; i < objs.length; i++) {
        objs[i] = new APIObject();
    }
    setKeys (objs);
}</pre>
        As you may have guessed from the name <code>Children.Keys</code>, what your parent
        class does is take an array or <code>Collection</code> of key objects, and act as a
        factory for <code>Node</code>s for them.  So, you call <code>setKeys()</code> in
        <code>addNotify()</code>, since <code>addNotify()</code> is telling you that something
        is about to ask for the child nodes.  For each element in the array or collection
        you pass to <code>setKeys()</code>, <code>createNodes()</code> will be called 
        once (note this means that if you want, you can have more than one node to represent
        one object).
        </li>
        <li>Now you need to implement the code that actually creates Node objects for all
        of these.  Implement <code>createNodes()</code> as follows:
        <pre class=examplecode>
protected Node[] createNodes(Object o) {
    APIObject obj = (APIObject) o;
    AbstractNode result = new AbstractNode (new MyChildren(), Lookups.singleton(obj));
    result.setDisplayName (obj.toString());
    return new Node[] { result };
}</pre>
        </li>
        <li>Press Ctrl-Shift-I to Fix Imports.</li>
        <li>The last step is to install a bit of plumbing code that will wire up your
        explorer manager to your TopComponent's lookup.  First, delete the line 
        <pre class=examplecode>
private final InstanceContent content = new InstanceContent();</pre>
        from the head of the class definition&#8212;you will be using a utility to wire
        up the selected <code>Node</code>'s <code>Lookup</code> to your component's
        <code>Lookup</code>.
        </li>
        <li>Modify the constructor of <code>MyEditor</code> so it looks like this:
        <pre class=examplecode>
public MyEditor() {
    initComponents();
    associateLookup (ExplorerUtils.createLookup(mgr, getActionMap()));
    mgr.setRootContext(new AbstractNode(new MyChildren()));
    setDisplayName ("My Editor");
}</pre>
        </li>
    </ol>
    
    <p><h2 class="tutorial"><a name="running"></a>Running the Tutorial</h2>
    <p>You may have noticed that because you pass a new instance of <code>MyChildren</code>
        to each <code>AbstractNode</code> you create, that you will end up with an infinitely
        deep tree of <code>APIObjects</code>&#8212;each <code>Node</code> will have five child
    <code>Node</code>s, each with its own <code>APIObject</code>.</p>
    <p>
        You are now ready to run, so right-click <code>SelectionSuite</code> and choose
        Clean and Build, and then right-click again and choose Run from the popup menu.
        When NetBeans starts, use your Open Editor action on the File menu to open an
    instance of <code>MyEditor</code>.</p>
    <p>
    <img border="1" src="../images/tutorials/selection-2/result-2-60.png"/>
    <p>
    Notice that as you click and/or expand different nodes, the viewer and the property sheet update
    themselves
    to show the <code>APIObject</code> belonging to each node, as shown below:
    
    <p>
    <img border="1" src="../images/tutorials/selection-2/result-1-60.png"/>
    <p>
    
    <p><h2 class="tutorial"><a name="exploring"></a>Exploring Explorer</h2>
    Now that you have the above code, it can be interesting to explore some of the
    other components available in NetBeans, which can also render a <code>Node</code>
    and it's children.  You can do this simply by opening <code>MyEditor</code> in
    the form editor and changing the Custom Creation Code property to use a different
    component.  For some of these you will need to replace the <code>JScrollPane</code> with
    a different type of component (if it seems easier, just delete the <code>JScrollPane</code>
    in the form editor, and add the code <code>add (new BeanTreeView(), BorderLayout.CENTER)</code>
    to the constructor.
    
    Some of the options are:
    <ul>
        <li><b>ListView</b>&#8212;display nodes in a JList (you can set how deep into the
        Node hierarchy it should go)</li>
        <li><b>TreeTableView</b>&#8212;a tree-table&#8212;a table whose leftmost column is
        a tree</li>
        <li><b>ChoiceView</b>&#8212;a combo-box view of a Node and its children</li>
        <li><b>MenuView</b>&#8212;a <code>JButton</code> that pops up a menu of a Node and
        its children</li>
        <li><b>IconView</b>&#8212;a component that shows Node children in equally spaced
        icons, rather like Windows Explorer</li>
    </ul>
    
    <p><h2 class="tutorial"><a name="handling"></a>Handling Multi-Selection</h2>
    You may have noticed that <code>BeanTreeView</code>, the basic tree view for
    Nodes, lets you select more than one Node at a time.  Therefore, it might be
    desirable to modify your viewer component to display information about all of
    the selected nodes:
    <ol>
        <li>Open <code>org.myorg.myviewer.MyViewerTopComponent</code> from the My Viewer
        project, in the editor.</li>
            <li>Replace the <code>resultChanged()</code> listener method with the following
                code:
                <pre class=examplecode>
public void resultChanged(LookupEvent lookupEvent) {
    Lookup.Result r = (Lookup.Result) lookupEvent.getSource();
    Collection c = r.allInstances();
    if (!c.isEmpty()) {
        StringBuffer text1 = new StringBuffer();
        StringBuffer text2 = new StringBuffer();
        for (Iterator i = c.iterator(); i.hasNext();) {
            APIObject o = (APIObject) i.next();
            text1.append (o.getIndex());
            text2.append (o.getDate().toString());
            if (i.hasNext()) {
                text1.append (',');
                text2.append (',');
            }
        }
        jLabel1.setText (text1.toString());
        jLabel2.setText (text2.toString());
    } else {
        jLabel1.setText("[no selection]");
        jLabel2.setText ("");
    }
}</pre>
            </li>
        </ol>
        <p>So you can see that, not only does the <code>Lookup</code> created by <code>ExplorerUtils</code>
        handle proxying the <code>Lookup</code> of whatever <code>Node</code> is 
        selected;  it also correctly proxies the <code>Lookup</code>s of multiple
    <code>Node</code>s.</p>
    <p>
    <img border="1" src="../images/tutorials/selection-2/multi-selection-60.png"/>
    
    <p><h2 class="tutorial"><a name="review"></a>Review of Concepts</h2>
    To review a few of the concepts you've covered here:
    
    <ul>
        <li>A <code>Lookup</code> is like a <code>Map</code> where the keys are classes and the values are
        instances of those classes.  It's also useful to think of a <code>Lookup</code>
        as a <i>place</i> that objects swim into and out of, and you can subscribe to
        be notified of the arrival and departure of specific types of object.</li>
        
        <li><code>Utilities.actionsGlobalContext()</code> is a <code>Lookup</code> which
        proxies the <code>Lookup</code> of whichever <code>TopComponent</code> currently
        has keyboard focus, and fires changes when focus moves to a different component.</li>
        
        <li><code>Node</code>s are presentation objects that can be displayed in
        a tree, list or other component from the Explorer API.  Each <code>Node</code>
        has its own <code>Lookup</code>.</li>
        
        <li>Just as <code>Utilities.actionsGlobalContext</code> proxies the <code>Lookup</code>
        of TopComponents (so you can just ask that lookup for a result and listen for changes
        in it, rather than having to track focus changes yourself), so also the <code>Lookup</code>
        created by <code>ExplorerUtils.createLookup(ExplorerManager, ActionMap)</code> will
        create a <code>Lookup</code> which automatically proxies the <code>Lookup</code> of
        whatever <code>Node</code>(s) are selected in an Explorer component.
        </li>
    </ul>

<!--    
    <p><h2 class="perf"><a name="next"></a>Nodes and Performance/GUI Responsiveness</h2>
    In general, Nodes are lightweight objects, and inexpensive to create.  However,
    sometimes that is not true of the objects they model.  Here are two techniques to
    overcome cases where fetching the data that needs to be displayed causes an 
    unacceptable lag:

    <h3 class="perf"><a name="next"></a>Background Initialization</h3>
    If you control the root <code>Node</code>, try something like the following:
    
    <pre></pre>
    -->
    
    
   <br>
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    <p><h2 class="tutorial"><a name="next"></a>Next Steps</h2>
    So you now have a view that can display <code>Node</code>s that expose some
    underlying model object (<code>APIObject</code> in your case).  In the
    <a href="nbm-nodesapi2.html">next tutorial</a>, you will cover how to enhance
    the Nodes you have already created with actions, properties and more 
    colorful display names.
    
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