Documentation

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This page collects Wandora documentation. Documentation is a work in progress and incomplete. Also note some documentation may be out of date as the application is developed intensely. If you need specific help, leave a note in the discussion forum and we'll answer your request as soon as possible. Additional help may be available on wandoratv. If you would like to edit this wiki, send an email to Template:Wandora email with your name and information about how you'd like to contribute.


Contents

Preparing Wandora

Wandora is a desktop application written in Java version 6. To run Wandora application you need a Java Runtime Environment (JRE). Wandora application it self can be downloaded from a page addressed below. Wandora application has no installer. Unzip downloaded package and the application is ready to be used. Most common method to run Wandora is to start one of the scripts in bin folder.

Topic Maps

Wikipedia defines Topic Maps as a standard for the representation and interchange of knowledge, with an emphasis on the findability of information. A topic map represents information using topics, associations and occurrences. Topic represents any concept, from people, countries, and organizations to software modules, individual files, and events. Association representing hypergraph relationships between topics. And occurrence is an information resource relevant to a particular topic.

See also Layers section below.

Using Wandora

This section contains some basic tutorials for Wandora. If you are a novice Wandora user, please start here. See also tutorial videos on wandoratv.

Editing topics

Wandora has a rich set of topic, association and occurrence editing features. Wandora user may edit single topic in a topic panel. Modifying an association takes place in separate dialog window, association editor. Similarly, modifying an occurrence takes place in a separate editor. See also tutorial videos on wandoratv.

Topic panels

Topic panel is Wandora's UI element to view and edit topics. Wandora supports several different topic panel types. Topic panel type is changed with menu options in View > Topic panels. Traditional topic panel views all topic elements in a table while tabbed panel views topic details in separate tabs. Graph topic panel is used for graph visualizations. Custom topic panel is based on user specific queries related to the current topic.

Import and Export

Wandora has been designed for easy aggregation of information and features a wide range of import and export tools. Wandora imports not just different Topic Maps formats such as XTM1, XTM2, and LTM but also RDF as XML, N3, and Turtle. Also, Wandora imports bio-ontologies in OBO flat file format. To get an up-to-date overview of Wandora's import options see menu File > Import. Addition to import options, Wandora features a wide range of export options from different Topic Maps formats to different graph formats. See menu options in File > Export. Wandora's native file format is Wandora project, with a file suffix WPR, which is a collection of XTM2 topic maps and a configuration file within a zip package.

Graph and matrix imports

Graph and matrix exports

For additional information about Wandora's export capabilities see also Wandora Server and CMS bridges section below. For additional information about Wandora's import capabilities see also Extractors section below.

Extractors

Wandora is great for information mashups. With Wandora you can easily mashup information from various sources. Extractors are specific Wandora tools used to extract topics and associations out of different file formats and sources. For example, Wandora can extract data from MP3 and JPG files. To see what extractors your Wandora has installed see menu options in File > Extract. To start an extractor select the extractor in the menu or use drag and drop extractor. Wandora also features an add-on for Mozilla Firefox WWW browser. With this add-on you can perform extractions directly in WWW browser or Thunderbird email client.

Search engine extractors

Simple files extractors

Media extractors

Social and Bookmark extractors

Bibliographical extractors

Classifications

Knowledge extractors

HTML structures extractors

News and syndication extractors

Microformat extractors

Wiki extractors

Simple RDF extractors

Language

Databases

Other

See Refining occurrences for some practical examples of how to extract associations and topics out of occurrences.

Generators

Generators are special tools that generate topics and associations algorithmically. Generators help you to construct basic building blocks for your topic maps. Generators also serve as a nice test suite for Wandora and topic maps in general. Generators locate in Wandora's File > Generate menu. Available generators are

Schema

Schema is a collection of specific topics and associations that Wandora uses to construct the user interface of association editor, occurrence editor and topic name panel. Schema eases many topic map operations such as association and occurrence construction. Schema also defines the language support of Wandora application.

  • Schema to ease association and occurrence creation and modification

Language support

Wandora supports only one base name per topic. However, a topic may contain several different variant names. Each variant name has a type and a language. Similarly, topic map contain several different occurrences, text fragments. Each occurrence has also a type and a language. Wandora supports both Microsoft Translator and Google translate API and can convert both variant names and occurrences to other languages.

Layers

Wandora supports layered topic maps. Layered topic map contains one or more topic maps stacked into an ordered array. This separation of merged topic maps allows flexible management of topic maps and enables the birth of public knowledge repositories used as a component of other Wandora based knowledge bases. Layer specific options locate in Layers menu.

Different layer types

Other

Layer example diagram.gif

Analyzing Topic Maps

Generally these tools locate in Layers > Statistics menu. As an exception SOM classifier is found in association table menu and topic map comparison in File menu. Wandora provides also a bridge to R language. R language is a comprehensive statistical and graphing environment. With Wandora's R integration, the user can access Wandora's information structures in R environment. This opens up interesting possibilities if used together with information extractors.

Tools and tool manager

Almost every feature in Wandora is implemented with a tool. Tool packs certain Wandora functionality into a single software component. Wandora's user may customize the available tool set and even add third party tools to Wandora.

Wandora as a server

Wandora application includes an HTTP server. Server can be used to serve topic maps as HTML representations, RSS feeds or a web service. User can also build own representations. As an example, Wandora team has built several modules for Drupal content management system and an extra for Joomla content management system.

For additional information, see also Export section above.

Miscellaneous

Personal tools