info.monitorenter.gui.util
Interface IColorDistributor

public interface IColorDistributor

An interface for distributing colors.

Implementations are keeping track of the java.awt.Color - instances they gave away during invocation of getColor(). The aim is to provide an interface that allows to get unique colors from. As all colors given away are remembered, it is possible to avoid lending the same color several times.

It will be tricky to implement this in a good way because of the fact that the ColorLessor should not be limited to a maximum amount of colors, it does not know how much different colors there will be asked for a priori, the amount of colors given away should be the most visual different and the background color should be especially different from all ohter colors given away.

Author:

Achim Westermann

See Also:

Chart2D

Method Summary

void	freeColor(java.awt.Color color) Puts the given color back into the color- space of free colors.
java.awt.Color	getColor() Returns a color, that has not been retrieved before from this instance.
void	reserveColor(java.awt.Color color) Informs the IColorDistributor that a client already uses the given color.
void	setBgColor(java.awt.Color background) No other color returned from instances must come "too near" to this color to guarantee a good visibility of the other colors returned.

Method Detail

freeColor

void freeColor(java.awt.Color color)

Puts the given color back into the color- space of free colors.

Do not forget to give your colors back if not used any more to allow the biggest possible visual difference of the colors given away.

Parameters:

color - the color to give back into this color space.

See Also:

getColor()

getColor

java.awt.Color getColor()

Returns a color, that has not been retrieved before from this instance.

Returns:

a color, that has not been retrieved before from this instance.

reserveColor

void reserveColor(java.awt.Color color)

Informs the IColorDistributor that a client already uses the given color.

This ensures that the IColorDistributor does never return the given color to clients. Furthermore implementations may use the given informations of the color, e.g. an IColorDistributor that tries to return always the most different colors (from each other).

Parameters:

color - the color to reserve.

setBgColor

void setBgColor(java.awt.Color background)

No other color returned from instances must come "too near" to this color to guarantee a good visibility of the other colors returned.

Calls to this method are of course optional but should be regarded in the computations of implemenatations.

Parameters:

background - the background color to keep a viewable distance to.