Section 19.1.  Presentations

19.1. Presentations The Workbench uses the term presentation to define the set of Workbench classes that is responsible for managing and displaying editors and views. Presentations do more than paint widgetsthey are not just skins for the application. They also provide behavior for widgets. Presentations control the look of tabsthe very fact that tabs are used at allas well as toolbars, menus, and how parts are dragged from place to place. Presentations manage stacks of presentable parts such as views and editors. They allow collections of like parts to be stacked together and control the presentation and behavior of the stack. The Workbench may instantiate several presentations for a given page depending on the perspective layout. In essence, each hole that you define in your perspective is filled with a presentation that stacks views or editors in the hole. Figure 19-1 shows what Hyperbola would look like if you could remove all presentations from the Workbench. This isn't a mock-up; it is using a presentation that does not do much. The look resembles a perspective in which all views and editors are standalone. The most obvious quirk is that the chat editors and Console views no longer show their tabs. From the example, you can see that presentations play an important role in the Workbench and in defining the overall look and feel of your application. Figure 19-1. Hyperbola without a presentation