The resource loading framework is a caching and more general replacement for
Java's own URL implementation.

The framework decouples the process of identifying dependent resources from the
ugly task of having to map these identifiers to their respective loader
implementations. A user of the framework only has to know, what he wants to
load and how the location of the resource is identified (vulgo: from where to
load the content).

If multiple alternatives for the raw-data format exist, as it is common for
loading images (or for parsing abstract structures like report definitions), the
it is the framework's responsiblity to find the correct loader and to load the
content.

As the framework is the central resource loading point, caching should be applied
transparently in this layer.

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General architecture:

Each resource is identified by an unique resource key. A resource loader is
responsible for loading the specified raw-data from the location given inside
the key. The raw data is now interpreted by a suitable resource factory
implementation (ie. parsed) and passed over to the client.

If the resource factory produces an immutable object (or is able to create a
separated copy of the generated content afterwards), the resource is stored
in the cache.


+--------+       +--------+       +--------+       +--------+
|Resource|  -->  |Resource|  -->  |Resource|  -->  |Resource|
|  Key   |       | loader |       |Factory |       |        |
+--------+       +--------+       +--------+       +--------+


The lookup, caching and overall management of the loaders and factories
available is handled by the ResourceManager.

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Usage:

Loading an image from an resource located on the classpath:

// if caching should have any effect, the manager must be reused.
// Now: Create a manager and load all known factories ...
ResourceManager manager = new ResourceManager();
manager.registerDefaults();


String resource = "res://org/jfree/report/images/lion.jpg";
ResourceKey key = manager.createKey (resource);
Resource res = manager.create (key, java.awt.Image.class);
java.awt.Image image = (java.awt.Image) res.getResource();