Accessing the Interface Browser

The Interface Browser enables you to add and maintain interfaces in the current schema. Each schema in the Jade database can have a collection of interfaces.

To open an Interface Browser, perform one of the following actions

• Click the Browse Interfaces button on the Browser toolbar

• Select the Interfaces command from the Browse menu

An Interface Browser window is then opened and the Interfaces menu is displayed in the menu bar, as shown in the following image.

If you have not yet defined an interface in the current schema, nothing is displayed in the Interface Browser. When you select an interface, the editor pane displays all implementors in the current schema and all of its subschemas.

By default, the displayed interfaces are those defined in this schema and interfaces that are implemented in this schema. To view interfaces in superschemas, select the Superschemas command from the View menu.

The Interfaces menu contains the commands listed in the following table.

Command	For details, see…	Action
Add	Defining an Interface	Displays the Define Interface dialog
Extract	Extracting an Interface	Displays the standard Save As dialog
Compile	Compiling an Interface Method	Compiles the current method
Methods Browser	Using the Quick Navigation Facility, in Chapter 2	Displays the Methods Browser for the selected interface
References	Displaying all References to the Selected Interface	Displays the References Browser
Show History	Displaying the History of an Interface	Displays the Summary of Patches dialog
Change	Maintaining an Interface	Displays the Define Interface dialog
Find	Locating an Interface	Displays the Find Type dialog
Remove	Removing an Interface	Removes the selected interface
Text	Specifying Text for an Interface	Displays the Text window

The Interface Browser is similar to the Class Browser, with the following differences.

• An interface can define only methods and constants

• An interface method does not contain a body

• Interfaces are always displayed in alphabetical order

• An interface can extend multiple other interfaces

• The View menu Show Inherited command displays details of methods and constants from any interface defined in a superschema of the current schema

For details about the Class Browser, see "Opening a Class, Primitive Types, or Interface Browser", in Chapter 3.