Here are some use cases illustrating the need for the nodes of the database
explorer be be part of a public API.

1. Creating a tool for object relational mapping.

The user needs to specify how the information in the database tables maps to the
object layer as part of building an O-R layer. (e.g. a Hibernate or JDO module)
The user may need to:
i. Choose a connection/schema
ii. Select a table an specify that a java object should be created to represent
the table.
iii. Further specify how the database columns map to poperties of the java object.
iv. Go in the other direction - create a new java object and specify that a new
table needs to be created to persist the object. Then specify the columns and
their types.


2. A data binding framework used in a reporting tool.

Information in database tables is viewed in a reporting tool (e.g. as tables or
forms). The user need to be able to specify which data is to be reported, and to
be able to specify a query to pull data from the database. The query tool might
be a GUI built from the database model
i. The user creates a table in the report. They need to specify which database
table(s) the data is to come from and which columns need to be represented in
the report table.
ii. The user needs to query data in the database to pull back the rows of
interest. A "freeform" query UI might allow the user to specify tables and
columns in the database that should be used as part of the query criteria.



3. Creating a Entity Relationship diagram for a database schema.

A graphical representaion of the database schema needs to be generated. For
instance, using the graph module to represent each table as a node in the
diagram and the FK relationships as the edges.
The user will need to specify which tables to add to the diagram. They would
need to be able to select them from an Explorer that would be virtually
identical to the current database explorer.



These use cases would benefit from the ability to present the nodes present in
the database explorer API in the UI the user would see (for instance in a
wizzard, explorer or a TopComponent).