| An opaque representation of a particular image such that the image can be
accessed either as an HTML fragment or as an
Image object. An image
prototype can be thought of as an abstract image factory with additional
capabilities.
The
AbstractImagePrototype.applyTo(Image) method provides an efficient way to replace the
contents of an existing Image. This is useful in cases where
an image changes its appearance based on a user's action. Instead of creating
two Image objects then alternately hiding/showing them, one
can use the
AbstractImagePrototype.applyTo(Image) method of two
AbstractImagePrototype objects to transform a single
Image object between two (or more) visual representations. The
use of AbstractImagePrototypes results in an cleaner and more
efficient implementation.
This class is also a useful way to encapsulate complex HTML that represents
an image without actually instantiating Image objects. When
constructing large HTML fragments, especially those that contain many images,
AbstractImagePrototype.getHTML() can be much more efficient.
| 