Provider Interface

The Provider interface clearly defines the communication channel between a container and a provider. The container may be the DesktopServlet, or another provider object. The methods defined in the Provider interface supply the basic handshaking required for a container to display the content from a provider object.

A provider can implement this interface. Clients of the Provider interface call the methods in this interface to query information or to perform an action in the provider. Such clients include, but are not limited to, the DesktopServlet and other channels (container channels).

There are essentially two types of methods in this interface:

Methods that handle actions

This includes getContent(), getEdit(), and processEdit() methods. These methods control any channel content generation and are called by the DesktopServlet or the channel’s parent container.

Methods that describe how the provider should be treated by the containing entity

This includes all methods that begin with is and get (minus the get* methods used for handling actions).

See the Javadocs for more information on the methods in this interface.