Should "LazyElement" concept be removed?

[alechenninger]

This would mean moving all of the element subtype factories back into AbstractView. The advantage is that there is no longer need to lazily initialize the elements. However, the ElementInvocationHandler would have to accept a View instead of an ElementContext directly. (Or a Supplier...)

[alechenninger]

Removing this does impact custom elements. Right now, a custom element can add it's own static factory method that looks just like any other element ... something like:

public class MyView extends AbstractView {
  private CustomElement customElement = customElement(By.id("id"));
}

// CustomElementImpl.java
public class CustomElementImpl extends AbstractView implements CustomElement {
  public static CustomElement customElement(Locator locator) {
    return Elements.element(CustomElement.class, locator, new CustomElementImpl());
  }
  // snip

... and it will still get initialized on setContext.

Alternatively, something like this might work:

public class MyView extends AbstractView {
  private CustomElement customElement = element(By.id("id"), customElement());
}

// CustomElement.java
public interface CustomElement extends Element {
  public static ElementDescription<CustomElement> customElement() {
    return new ElementDescription<>(CustomElement.class, CustomElementImpl::new);
  }

Given that...

• This is uglier for custom elements even if you get creative
• You still need proxies because context is null at instantiation
• Changing this would completely break everyone's page objects

I'm thinking no.