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This plug-in contains the bulk of the Workbench implementation, and depends on JFace, SWT, and Core Runtime. It cannot be used independently from org.eclipse.ui. Workbench client plug-ins should not depend directly on this plug-in.

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/*******************************************************************************
 * Copyright (c) 2000, 2005 IBM Corporation and others.
 * All rights reserved. This program and the accompanying materials
 * are made available under the terms of the Eclipse Public License v1.0
 * which accompanies this distribution, and is available at
 * http://www.eclipse.org/legal/epl-v10.html
 *
 * Contributors:
 *     IBM Corporation - initial API and implementation
 *******************************************************************************/
package org.eclipse.ui;

import org.eclipse.jface.resource.ImageDescriptor;

/**
 * A perspective descriptor describes a perspective in an
 * IPerspectiveRegistry.  
 * 
 * A perspective is a template for view visibility, layout, and action visibility
 * within a workbench page. There are two types of perspective: a predefined 
 * perspective and a custom perspective.  
 * 

 *   A predefined perspective is defined by an extension to the workbench's 
 *     perspective extension point ("org.eclipse.ui.perspectives").
 *     The extension defines a id, label, and IPerspectiveFactory.
 *     A perspective factory is used to define the initial layout for a page.
 *     
 *   A custom perspective is defined by the user.  In this case a predefined
 *     perspective is modified to suit a particular task and saved as a new
 *     perspective.  The attributes for the perspective are stored in a separate file 
 *     in the workbench's metadata directory.
 *     
 * 
 * 
 * 
 * Within a page the user can open any of the perspectives known
 * to the workbench's perspective registry, typically by selecting one from the
 * workbench's Open Perspective menu. When selected, the views
 * and actions within the active page rearrange to reflect the perspective.
 * 
 * 
 * This interface is not intended to be implemented by clients.
 * 
 * @see IPerspectiveRegistry
 */
public interface IPerspectiveDescriptor {
    /**
     * Returns the description of this perspective.
     * This is the value of its "description" attribute.
     *
     * @return the description
     * @since 3.0
     */
    public String getDescription();

    /**
     * Returns this perspective's id. For perspectives declared via an extension,
     * this is the value of its "id" attribute.
     *
     * @return the perspective id
     */
    public String getId();

    /**
     * Returns the descriptor of the image to show for this perspective.
     * If the extension for this perspective specifies an image, the descriptor
     * for it is returned.  Otherwise a default image is returned.
     *
     * @return the descriptor of the image to show for this perspective
     */
    public ImageDescriptor getImageDescriptor();

    /**
     * Returns this perspective's label. For perspectives declared via an extension,
     * this is the value of its "label" attribute.
     *
     * @return the label
     */
    public String getLabel();
}