RuntimeAsset.java

/**
 * eAdventure (formerly <e-Adventure> and <e-Game>) is a research project of the
 *    <e-UCM> research group.
 *
 *    Copyright 2005-2010 <e-UCM> research group.
 *
 *    You can access a list of all the contributors to eAdventure at:
 *          http://e-adventure.e-ucm.es/contributors
 *
 *    <e-UCM> is a research group of the Department of Software Engineering
 *          and Artificial Intelligence at the Complutense University of Madrid
 *          (School of Computer Science).
 *
 *          C Profesor Jose Garcia Santesmases sn,
 *          28040 Madrid (Madrid), Spain.
 *
 *          For more info please visit:  <http://e-adventure.e-ucm.es> or
 *          <http://www.e-ucm.es>
 *
 * ****************************************************************************
 *
 *  This file is part of eAdventure, version 2.0
 *
 *      eAdventure is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify
 *      it under the terms of the GNU Lesser General Public License as published by
 *      the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or
 *      (at your option) any later version.
 *
 *      eAdventure is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
 *      but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
 *      MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the
 *      GNU Lesser General Public License for more details.
 *
 *      You should have received a copy of the GNU Lesser General Public License
 *      along with eAdventure.  If not, see <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.
 */

package es.eucm.ead.engine.assets;

import es.eucm.ead.model.assets.AssetDescriptor;

/**
 * A platform-independent description of an asset in the runtime environment
 *
 * @param <T> The type of the {@link AssetDescriptor}
 */
public interface RuntimeAsset<T extends AssetDescriptor> {

	/**
	 * Load the actual asset into memory
	 *
	 * @return True if the asset was loaded correctly
	 */
	boolean loadAsset();

	/**
	 * Free the memory resources used by the asset
	 */
	void freeMemory();

	/**
	 * Returns true if the asset is loaded
	 *
	 * @return true if the asset is loaded
	 */
	boolean isLoaded();

	/**
	 * Set the descriptor of the asset
	 *
	 * @param descriptor the {@link AssetDescriptor}
	 */
	void setDescriptor(T descriptor);

	/**
	 * @return Returns the asset descriptor for this runtime asset
	 */
	T getAssetDescriptor();

	/**
	 * Refreshes the asset (normally used to refresh those assets that change
	 * with localization)
	 */
	void refresh();
}