Wandora Won't add topics

[clemp]

OK, what's the trick I'm missing? Adding a new layer works. Selecting the new layer works. Adding a new topic does nothing, shows nothing, and reports no error. Using one of the extractors acts like it is extracting but when you close the dialog, nothing has been added to the topic map? Running under Windows Vista.

[akivela]

Hi Clemp

I suppose you have created an unconnected topic. An unconnected topic shares no associations with any other topics. It is a kind of alone island in an archipelago where all other islands share a bridge. Therefore it's rather difficult to spot after creation.

To locate an unconnected topic you can try to search it with Wandora's Finder feature. Short documentation about Finder and other search features of Wandora can be found at

http://www.wandora.org/wandora/wiki/ind ... ng_a_topic

When you find your missing topic, you can always make a bridge between it and other topics by creating an association, adding it a type etc.

Yes, some extractors (and generators also, by the way) work similarly. They don't connect their topics to the topic tree at left of Wandora window. There is an obvious reason for this. Sometimes it is not clear where an extractor should connect topics it creates, and the decision has been left to the user. After all, it is a question of ontological design. I hope you can agree this design decision after you have played Wandora a little longer.

If you can't find any new topics at all after creating a one, or extracting something, please drop a line describing more detailed your actions and features used.

Kind Regards,
Aki / Wandora Team

[clemp]

Thanks, you were correct. I knew it had to be something simple. Since the Wandora Class is the predefined base of everything, I had expected anything added to at least be attached to Wandora Class by default.

So, as a followup question, let's say I run an extractor and it creates 1000 topics along with some set of classes to which those topics are linked. If I already have a topic with a base name that matches a topic created by the extractor, some of the topics will be added to the tree. Other topics will be unconnected. Is there an easy way to find everything that an extractor just added to the map? Does each extractor add it's own scoping topic somewhere that can be used as a starting point for exploring the topics added by the extractor?

[akivela]

Great to hear you managed to find your missing topics.

If you have created topics that share a same class, I would make this class topic an instance of Wandora Class. Required steps are

1. Select Wandora Class topic in topic tree.
2. Right click the Wandora Class in topic tree. A context menu opens.
3. Select menu option Add to topic > Add instance...
4. A dialog opens, select Finder tab and locate your class topic.
5. Select class topic and press OK.

Now you should see the class topic under Wandora Class, and you can open your class topic and explore all instances of it below.

Or, you might want to create your own class topic below Wandora Class, and then connect the extractor generated class as a subclass of that. There are numerous different options to handle instance topics.

Easiest way to control extracted topics is to create an empty layer for them and then do the extraction. As a result, all created topics locate in a single topic map layer. You can check statistics of the layer by right clicking the layer and choosing menu option Statistics > Layer info. Statistics include number of topics and number of associations that generally gives a good overview of the topic map.

Usually each extractor uses extractor specific URI body while adding subject identifiers to topics. I suppose, searching with that URI body returns nearly everything the extractor created. Also, usually, each extractor adds a type to all topics it creates. Thus, it is usually enough to locate these type topics in order to reach all extractor generated topics.

What specific extractor have you been using?

[clemp]

I was playing with the Text File, MP3, PDF, and Directory Structure extractors. In each case I had to know something specific about what I had extracted to search for it in the finder. Extracting into a layer is reasonable but I have to search for the regex "." to find them all and see what was extracted. It seems like viewing what you extracted would always be the next step after extracting something so I expected a more obvious feature for it. No problem: This works so I'll keep experimenting. Thanks for the help.

[akivela]

Those extractors of Text, MP3, PDF, and Directory Structure are rather old and probably require some refactoring in order to make results more evident. I have remarked your feedback. Thank you.