Creating custom topic trees

It is possible to customize the default topic tree or create new topic trees. To create a new topic tree right click on the topic tree tab on the left and select Create new tab. This will automatically open the configure tab dialog which you can access also by right clicking on the topic tree tab and selecting Configure Tab.

In configure tab dialog you can select the root topic for the tree, you can either use an existing topic tree to find the topic or select a topic by typing the base name, subject identifier or subject locator. You can also select which types of associations are included in the tree. If you select instances, then all instances of a topic will be shown as child nodes in the tree. If you select subclasses then all subclasses of a topic will be shown as child nodes.

You can create new association types for topic trees. To do this right click on any of the topic tree tabs and select Configure Types. For each association you can change the name shown in configure tab dialog, the icon shown in the tree and association details. Association details are (from left to right) role for child node, association type and role for parent node. For example, by default there is a subclasses association type. Topic for child node role is Subclass, topic for association type is Superclass-Subclass and topic for parent node is Superclass. This means that topics with the role Subclass in an association of type Superclass-Subclass will appear as child nodes of topics that are in the same association with role Superclass.

Association type name "Instances" is special. It means that the association type and role topics are ignored and instead instances of a topic are shown as child nodes in the tree.

To create a new association type click the Add button at the bottom of the dialog and set association name and topics. After this you can select this new association type for any tree in the configure tab dialog.

Note that a topic can appear as a child node of another topic several times. This can happen for example if it is both an instance and a subclass of the parent topic or in general if it matches more than one of the configured association types. All appearances are shown with different icons, one for each association type.