A. Glossary

Concepts pertinent to operational usage of the OO-Browser are defined here. If some GNU Emacs terms are unfamiliar to you, see [Stallman 93].

Ancestors

All classes above a class in the inheritance hierarchy.

Attribute

A data item declared with a class. Most attributes are instance-specific; each instance object of a class has its own copy of the attribute so that it can maintain a separate state. Some languages allow for class attributes where all instances of the class share one copy of the attribute and thereby maintain shared state.

Category

Under most languages, a logical grouping of related classes. The OO-Browser does not yet have any support for this kind of category.

Under Objective-C, a category is a partial class definition that implements a related set of methods. The full class definition is formed from the conjunction of all of the class' categories. The OO-Browser does support Objective-C category browsing.

Children

First level of classes below a class in the inheritance hierarchy. Those that directly inherit from a class.

Class

A factory construct from which object instances are created. The OO-Browser displays classes along with their elements, categories and formal protocols.

Class at Point

The class in a listing buffer whose name appears on the same line as point.

Completion

The act of filling in the non-ambiguous part of a requested item, such as a class name or a file name, based on a list of possibilities.

Declaration

A specification of a programmatic entity, for reference by other parts of a program. See also Definition. The declaration of a method specifies its signature but not its body.

Default Class

A class that the OO-Browser automatically creates to categorize instances of constructs that are built-in to a language, such as class protocols or global functions. Default class names begin and end with square bracket delimiters, as in [protocol].

Definition

A complete, unambiguous description of a programmatic entity, For example, the interface and body of a method defines it.

Decendants

All classes below a class in the inheritance hierarchy.

Element

A feature or an instance of a class.

Environment

A series of browser lookup tables and control variables that specify the set of classes and inter-class relationships with which the browser works.

Environment File

A file used to store a browser Environment.

Environment Specification

An unambiguous description of what to include in the construction of an Environment.

Feature

A method, attribute, or other component of a class. Features may be public or private and in some languages, non-inheritable.

Formal Protocol

See Protocol.

Friend

In C++, a specially declared class or method which is granted access to the private parts of the class in which its friend declaration is found.

Implementor

A class in which a particular element is defined. This does not include classes which inherit an element.

Initialization File

See Personal Initialization File.

Instance

An object which has a particular class as its type. The class serves as a template for instance creation.

Interface

See Protocol.

Library Classes

Stable, seldomly changed classes that have been released for general usage.

Listing Window

One of a number of browser windows used to display lists of entities. Inheritance relations are shown in listing windows via class name indentation.

Lookup Table

A data structure used to speed response to user queries.

Member

See Feature.

Method

A callable function defined within one or more classes.

Minibuffer Window

The single line window at the bottom of an Emacs frame. It is used to interact with the user by displaying messages and prompting for input.

Module

In Python, a namespace created by a code file used to group together global variables, functions and classes.

Package

In Python, a namespace created by a code file used to group together global variables, functions and classes.

Parents

The next level of classes above a specific class in the inheritance hierarchy. Those from which a class directly inherits.

Point

The position within the current buffer that is immediately in front of the character over which the Emacs block cursor is positioned.

Protocol

An interface specification to which a class conforms. Some languages use abstract classes for this purpose. Under Objective-C, Java and now Python, you may define formal protocols (also known as interfaces) which include a set of method signatures which a class must implement if it conforms to the protocol. One protocol may inherit from a list of other protocols, and thereby expand the set of methods which a conforming class must implement.

Routine

See Method.

Signature

An interface specification for a method. It includes the method's class, type of return value and the types of its formal parameters.

Smart Menu System

See Smart System.

Smart System

The Smart System is another handy program that helps you to work smarter and faster. It consists of two parts, the Smart Key System, a direct manipulation keyboard interface that gives you control of most Emacs subsystems by using only two keys, and the Smart Menu System. This provides a hierarchy of menus within Emacs that you use instead of keyboard commands, even when running on a dumb terminal without a window system. One of its uses is to invoke the OO-Browser on any desired language Environment. (Part of the Smart Key System is included with the OO-Browser. The Smart Menu System is available separately.)

System Classes

Classes still in development whose interfaces are likely to change. They are typically part of a specific project and are often not meant to be reused elsewhere.

Tag

A line from an OO-Browser internal lookup table that is used to match against the definition of a class element when browsing. Sometimes referred to as a signature tag. See also Signature.

Top-Level Classes

Classes without parents. Those at the top of the inheritance tree for a given Environment.

Viewer Window

The largest, bottom-most window in the browser used for displaying class source and help information.

This document was generated by XEmacs shared group account on December, 19 2009 using texi2html 1.65.