Package wt.folder

Provides classes to represent and manage folder and cabinet objects.

See:
Description

Interface Summary

CabinetBased	An interface that defines information as being part of a Cabinet and Folder organization structure.
CabinetMember	A CabinetMember is an object that can be put in a Cabinet, but not a SubFolder.
Folder	A Folder acts a container of information.
Foldered	A Foldered object is one that lives in a Folder (Cabinet or SubFolder).
FolderEntry	A FolderEntry is an object that can be considered one of the entries in a folder.
FolderEntryLink	Internal implementation interface that helps abstract common characteristics of FolderMembership associations and Shortcut associations.
FolderMembership	A FolderMembership association defines the basic containment characteristic of a Folder.
FolderService	Defines foldering related business operations.
IteratedFoldered	Information that is Iterated and is stored in folders is handled differently than other Foldered information.
Shortcut	Provides a means for one Folder to have references to other Folder's or FolderEntry objects (ie to any CabinetBased object).

Class Summary

Cabinet	A Cabinet is a major organizing characteristic for information residing in folders.
CabinetIdentity	Identification object for a Cabinet which is used to change the name (identity) of a cabinet.
CabinetReference	Provides a means to reference a Cabinet.
FolderCollationKeyFactory	A collation key factory for Foldered objects in a folder.
FolderHelper	This class provides access to the Windchill foldering capability.
FolderMemberLink	Holds a persistent association between a Folder (Cabinet or SubFolder) and a Foldered object (it's member).
FolderServiceEvent	Used to represent events occuring within the FolderService.
IteratedFolderMemberLink	Holds a persistent association between a Folder (Cabinet or SubFolder) and the latest iteration of an IteratedFoldered object (it's member).
IteratedShortcutLink	A persistent assocation between a Folder and the latest iteration of an iterated member of a Folder.
ShortcutLink	A persistent assocation between a Folder and a non-iterated CabinetBased object.
SubFolder	A SubFolder is a non-root folder, ie it resides in a Cabinet.
SubFolderIdentity	Defines the unique Identity of a SubFolder.
SubFolderLink	Provides a persistent association between a SubFolder with it's parent Folder.
SubFolderLinkConstraint	Defines the class which performs the uniqueness constraint for a SubFolder.
SubFolderLinkIdentity	Class that defines the uniquness constraint for a SubFolder.

Exception Summary

FolderException	Supported API: true Extendable: false
FolderNotFoundException	Supported API: true Extendable: false

Package wt.folder Description

Provides classes to represent and manage folder and cabinet objects.

The Foldering Service

The folder service resides in the package wt.folder. It provides the means to organize information into a cabinet and folder hierarchy, much the same way that this is done in operating systems available today. (Note that these are not operating system folders, merely objects that act much like operating system folders.) The cabinets provide not only a means to group information, but also a means to associate information with administrative policies for access control, indexing, and notifications. Folders provide a further breakdown of the information in a cabinet. Because it is common to view information with more than one organization, it is possible to construct alternative folder organizing structures that contain shortcuts (like operating system shortcuts, symbolic links, and aliases) to information residing in other folders.

Design Overview

The following figure shows the essential associations and interfaces involved with managing folder organized information.

The following figure contains a representation of the object model for foldered information.

Typically, new objects that are to be foldered should extend the interfaces provided in the wt.enterprise package. For simple foldered objects, use the FolderResident class shown above. If additional characteristics (such as life cycle management or versioning) are required, use the Managed or RevisionControlled classes.

External Interface

The CabinetBased interface defines characteristics of information organized by the foldering service. It has a name and a location that indicates the path to the object in the cabinet and folder hierarchy.

The Foldered interface is asserted by objects that are to be organized into a folder. An object can reside in (that is, be a member of) one and only one Folder.

The Folder interface is asserted for an object that organizes information. Both a Cabinet and a SubFolder perform this organizing mechanism. There are two types of Cabinets: personal and shared. A personal cabinet is intended to hold information belonging to (owned by) a specific user. A shared cabinet contains information that is intended for general access by other users/groups in the system (depending on administrative policies).

The FolderHelper is a class that provides access to the functions of the foldering package. Using these methods, an object is associated with a Folder for its initial creation, and can determine its full folder path, its cabinet, and so on. The FolderHelper also provides a member service variable which gives access to the server functionality of the FolderService.

The FolderService interface defines the client-server API of the folder service. These operations are used to determine the contents of folders and move an object from one folder to another, as well as perform operations to assist in programmatically constructing a cabinet and folder hierarchy.

The FolderServiceEvent is an event emitted when an object moves from one folder to another. The intent of the event is to allow other services and managers the opportunity to validate, veto, or perform additional work when an object is moved from one folder to another.

Business Rules

The business rules for foldering are based on the access control that it enforces. The most basic rule is that to put an object into a folder, or remove it from the folder, you must have modify permission on that folder. This is in addition to whatever permission you must directly have to create or delete the object. To move an object from one folder to another, you must have modify permission on the source and destination folders, as well as permission to delete the object from its source folder and to create it in its destination folder. An additional rule is that you can not move an object from a shared cabinet to a personal cabinet.

Subpackages

wt.folder.cache provides caching of folder related objects. It is not customizable.

Customization

The wt.folder package provides interfaces which custom business objects can implement to make them “Foldered”. This can also be done by implementing one of the basic Enterpise abstractions in the wt.enterprise package – often the preferred method.

Helper and service classes provide methods for managing foldered objects.

Extendable Classes and Implementable Interfaces

Foldered interface

IteratedFoldered interface