Editor

The Editor window is invoked by pressing Edit button (the Controller module) or by choosing an appropriate menu-item: Modules/Editor. After that the Editor window appears (see Fig 6.5).

Figure 6.5: Editor, the main window.

There are four areas of the Editor window: the menu, the tool-bar, the workspace and the status-bar.

The menu allows to close the Editor Edit/Close and to get manual about Editor capabilities and features Help/Manual.

The tool-bar controls a mode of the workspace. The mode could be select, properties, create or delete and it is selected by pressing the appropriate button from the tool-bar. There could be one mode selected at a time. The pressed button says which mode is selected.

The menu and the tool-bar are detachable components the same as Controller's tool-bars and menus.

The modes are discussed below:

create

It allows to create new objects. When the workspace is clicked then a dialog window appears (see Fig 6.6). There are two kinds of objects: an attribute and an action. An attribute describes conditions of launching a rule, and an action describes actions which have to be performed if the conditions are valid. Selection between an attribute and an action could be done by pressing an appropriate radio button: Attribute or Action respectively. The number of columns defines the number of attributes within the object (or the number of actions if Action is selected). The number of rows defines how many possible values, attributes should be compared with (if Action is selected it does nothing). After that, if OK is chosen a new object is created at the position where the workspace was clicked. Cancel aborts creation of a new object.

Figure 6.6: Editor, creating a new object.

Furthermore, after creation of an object, the Editor Properties window appears automatically.

delete

When the Editor is in delete mode, point and click on an object results in removing this object.

select

Allows to manipulate objects. There are two major capabilities:

moving

An object can be moved from one place to another one. To do that, point at the chosen object, then press the left mouse button, there should be a message on the status-bar: ``Object #<number> selected``, and then just move the object. The important thing is that in order to move an object it is necessary to click within a ``moving area'', see Fig 6.7. The ``number'' which is displayed on the status-bar corresponds with the number located at the upper right corner of the selected object.

linking

To link two objects together follow the instructions given below. Point at the object you want to connect. It is important that the object have to be pointed within its ``right connector area'' (see Fig6.7). Then press the left mouse button, there should be a message on the status-bar: ``Object #<number> selected''. Then just move the mouse. A new message should appear: ``Connecting object''. Then you can drag your mouse to the ``left connection area'' of the object you want to connect to and just release the button. The message: ``Connection established'' appears and the line between the connected objects should appear as well. Please note, that there are many ``right connectors'' (as many as rows in an object), but there is only one ``left connector'' per object, each row of a given object could be connected to only one object.

To disconnect or to reconnect an object point at a chosen object's ``left connector'', press the left button and drag. Appropriate message: ``Reconnecting object'' appears on the status-bar. If you release the button when the pointer points to the other ``left connector'' then objects would be reconnected, if the pointer does not point any ``left connector'' then the connection would be deleted.

Figure 6.7: Editor, sensitive areas

properties

When the Editor is in properties mode then when an object is clicked the Editor Properties window appears. Let's discus it using an example given in Fig 6.8.

The Editor is in properties mode and the object number 0 is clicked. What does ``object number'' mean? All objects have two special attributes displayed at the top: a type and a number. A type describes if object is an attribute, then ``ATR'' is displayed, or an action, then ``ACT'' is displayed. A number is just a unique number, within the project, the object could be identified by.

As it can be seen in Fig 6.8, graphical objects are similar to decision tables. There are two kinds of objects: attributes and actions. They are arranged in tables.

Each attribute table is treated as a decision table. Each column represents an attribute and possible values being related to this attribute. Each row can be connected to the other table (graphical object) which results with logical AND between attributes. If there is more then one column in the table, all attributes in the table are treated to be in relation logical AND to one another. In this case each row stands for logical AND among attributes being related with appropriate values in the row.

Each column of an action table consists of the name of the action and the value the action should be set. There could be more then one action (many columns), but only one value per action is allowed, there will be only one row.

The Editor Properties window contains the same information which is displayed as the graphical objects (attribute/action names, values). What is more, the window allows to modify names and values. In Fig 6.8 there is the Properties window for the object number 0. In this window there is a spreadsheet like table with all the names and the values. To modify a name or a value the appropriate field have to be clicked. Then the current name appears in the text widget located above. In this text widget, a name can be modified then. To apply changes to the object, click Apply button, to close the widow, loosing every change made, click Close button.

The example in Fig 6.8 is discussed in Section 6.2.4

Figure 6.8: Editor, properties of an object