Working with topic tables

Topic table is perhaps the most general GUI element in Wandora. Wandora uses topic tables to view topic collections such as search results, classes, instances, and associations. Topic table contains a set of topic cells each representing a single topic. Typically table cell contains topic's base name. If you are familiar with any spreadsheet application such as Microsoft Excel you may find it practical to think topic table as a spreadsheet where each cell contains topic instead of a number, formula, string etc. Below is a simple example of single column topic table with six topics. Two topics are selected.

Topic tables of search results, instances, and classes are always single column tables. Association tables usually contains at least two columns. Below is an example of topic table representing four binary associations.

All associations in the example above have same type and roles. Association table is a specific topic table. It carries association's type in left upper corner. Roles locate directly below the association type. Player rows locate below the role row. Each player row represents one association. This kind of representation of associations are very economic and intuitive if associations are similar. Unfortunately the picture is not pretty if associations don't share a type and roles.

Association table's role cells can also be used to sort table rows, switch table column order and change column widths. If you click the header cell with mouse pointer, table rows are sorted. If you click the cell again the order is inverted. Third click restores initial order. Small arrow near the header name indicates table's current sort status. Column order changes dragging and dropping the header horizontally to a new location. Column widths change dragging and dropping the header mid-line to a new location. Header mid-line is a line between two header cells. Mouse cursor changes to a horizontal two head arrow when you can adjust column widths.

Selecting topics

Topic table allows you to select table cells. Topic table selection is created clicking a cell in the table. Multiple cells are selected holding the SHIFT or the CONTROL key down while clicking table cells. SHIFT key creates continuous selections while CONTROL selects distinct cells. Another and maybe more intuitive method to create continuous selections is to drag mouse while mouse button is pressed down. Selected cells are colored light blue. Wandora has also more sophisticated selection tools. These tools locate in Edit > Select top-menu or Select context menu. Selection tools are:

• Select all selects every cell in the context table. Note that single topic panel page may contain multiple topic tables: one for instances, one for classes, and one for each association type.
• Select row(s) selects all cells of selected rows.
• Select column(s) selects all cells of selected columns.
• Deselect clears the selection of context table.
• Invert selection selects all unselected cells and deselects all selected cells.
• Select topics without associations. If topic in the cell has no associations the cell is selected.
• Select topics without text datas. If topic in the cell has no occurrences the cell is selected.
• Select topics without base names. If topic in the cell has no base name the cell is selected.
• Select topics without classes. If topic in the cell has no classes the cell is selected.
• Select topics without instances. If topic in the cell has no instances the cell is selected.
• Select topics without A+I. If topic in the cell has no associations and instances the cell is selected.
• Select topics with SL. If topic in the cell has no subject locator the cell is selected.
• Select topics with typed associations. If topic in the cell has associations of given type the cell is selected.
• Select topics with clipboard identifiers. Tool expects you have newline separated identifiers such as subject identifiers, subject locators, and base names in clipboard. Table cell is selected only if clipboard contains at least one identifier of the topic.
• Select topics with clipboard regexes. Selection tool expects you have newline separated regular expressions in the clipboard. Table cell is selected only if at least one identifier of the topic in the cell matches at least one regular expression in the clipboard.
• Select topics with clipboard regex finders. Selection tool expects you have newline character separated regular expressions in the clipboard. Table cell is selected only if at least one regular expression can be found at least in one identifier of the topic in the cell.

All selection tools assume you have somehow indicated the topic table in which the selection is created. Indication is implicit when you use context menu tools. Explicit indication such as clicking the table with mouse pointer is required if you intend to use top menu selection tools. This also means that you can select topics in one topic table at time. If you have already selected topics in other tables, selections remain untouched when you select topics in the table.

Next chapters discuss options used to modify topics. Discussed options modify only selected topics in current topic table. If other tables contain selections, selected topics are not modified by option.

Copying topics

Topic table cell contains a topic. This topic and topic's internal structures may be copied to system clipboard for advanced use. You may for example want to transfer specific associations of your topic map to your business report in Word. Even more exiting is that you can actually paste names, classes, instances etc. back to your topic.

• Copy base name copies base name of all selected topics to clipboard. Base names are separated by newline character.
• Copy SI copies one subject identifier of all selected topics to clipboard. Subject identifiers are separated by newline character.
• Copy instances within... copies instances of all selected topics. Tool copies newline separated base names of instance topics to clipboard. If your initial selection contains multiple topics, the origin of base names in clipboard text is lost. Wandora removes duplicate instances before instances are placed to the clipboard.
• Copy classes within... copies classes of all selected topics. Tool copies newline separated base names of class topics to clipboard. If your selection contains multiple topics, the origin of base names in clipboard text is lost. Wandora removes duplicate classes before placing topics to the clipboard.
• Copy associations within... copies all associations of selected topics to clipboard. The result set contains associations formatted as described in Transferring data with clipboard.
• Copy roles within... copies all roles used in associations of selected topics. Tool copies newline separated base names of role topics to clipboard. If your selection contains multiple topics, the origin of base names in clipboard text is lost. Wandora removes duplicate roles before placing topics to the clipboard.
• Copy players within... copies all players used in associations of selected topics. Tool copies newline separated base names of player topics to clipboard. If your selection contains multiple topics, the origin of base names in clipboard text is lost. Wandora removes duplicate players before placing topics to the clipboard.
• Copy as image copies topic table to clipboard as an image. Feature can be used for documenting purposes for example.

All previous copy tools (except Copy association within...) result a newline separated topic identifier list. Usually identifier is topic's base name but also subject identifier is used (Copy SI). Next tools are more complicated. Instead of copying plain identifiers they capture also other structures in topics. The result set contains newline separated rows where first token is topic's base name. First identifier follows tab separated tokens - usually identifiers to other topics. The format is very useful as it enables text injection to spreadsheet applications for example.

• Copy also names copies topic's base name and variant names to the clipboard. Base name and variant names are separated by tab character while name sets of different topics are separated with newline characters.
• Copy also SL copies topic's base name and subject locator to the clipboard. Base name and subject locator are separated by tab character while indentifier sets are separated with newline characters.
• Copy also SIs copies topic's base name and subject identifiers to the clipboard. Base name and subject identifiers are separated by tab character while identifier sets are separated by newline characters.
• Copy also classes copies topic's base name and classes of the topic to the clipboard. Base name and classes are separated by tab character while class sets are separated by new line characters.
• Copy also instances copies topic's base name and instances of the topic to the clipboard. Base name and instances are separated by tab character while instance sets of different topics are separated by new line characters.
• Copy also players... copies topic's base name and user defined players of the topic to the clipboard. Wandora requests the association type and role of association players to be copied. Base name and players are separated by tab character while player sets of different topics are separated by new line characters.
• Copy also occurrences... copies topic's base name and user defined occurrences to the clipboard. Wandora requests the occurrence type and scope of occurrences to be copied. Base name and occurrences are separated by tab character while occurrence sets of different topics are separated by new line character. As occurrence text may contain newline and tab characters also, the clipboard text may be quite messy.
• Copy also SI count copies topic's base name and number of topic's subject identifiers to the clipboard.
• Copy also class count copies topic's base name and number of topic's classes to the clipboard.
• Copy also instance count copies topic's base name and number of topic's instances to the clipboard.
• Copy also association count copies topic's base name and number of associations where the topic plays a role.
• Copy also typed association count... copies topic's base name and number of user defined associations where the topic plays a role. Wandora requests the association type of counted associations.
• Copy also topic layer distribution copies topic's base name and topic's layer distribution to the clipboard. Layer distribution has a wiki page of it's own.

Paste topics

Next tools are used to inject text formatted topics and topic structures to Wandora. Paste tools are usually symmetric with copy tools. Wandora user may usually paste the clipboard text copied from Wandora back to Wandora.

• Paste instances injects instance topics to selected topics. Wandora expects the clipboard contains a newline character separated list of base names representing instance topics. If base name is not found in Wandora ie. base name refers to a non-existing topic, Wandora consults the Wandora user and rejects the base name or creates a topic for the base name.
• Paste classes injects class topics to selected topics. Wandora expects the clipboard contains a newline character separated list of base names representing class topics. If base name refers to a non-existing topic, Wandora consults the user and rejects the base name or creates a topic for the base name.
• Paste associations injects clipboard associations to Wandora. Wandora expects the clipboard contains a text formatted like

association_type
role_1               role_2
player_a1            player_a2
player_b1            player_b2

where each line is separated with newline character and each token within a line is separated with tab character. Each token represents topic's base name. If topic does not exist, Wandora consults the user and rejects the base name or creates a topic for the base name.

• Paste also names... injects topic's variant names to Wandora. Note: This tool may change in future as the current version does not define variant's scope and type explicitly!
• Paste also SLs... injects topic's subject locators to Wandora. Wandora assumes the clipboard text contains newline separated lines with two tab separated tokens. First token represents topic's base name and second topic's subject locator. Subject locator must be valid URL address. If base name refers to a non-existing topic, Wandora consults the user and rejects the base name or creates a topic for the base name. Note that topics subject to change are now explicitly defined with clipboard text. Initial topic table selection does not define topics to be modified. As a consequence Wandora user may inject subject locator to any topic within any topic table with or without selected topics. This applies also to next paste tools. Note also that injecting same subject locator to many topics causes topic merges.
• Paste also SIs... injects topic's subject identifiers to Wandora.
• Paste also classes... injects topic's classes to Wandora.
• Paste also instances... injects topic's instances to Wandora.
• Paste also players...
• Paste also text datas...

Modifying topics in table

Selected table topics may also be modified. The context menu contains wide range of tools that somehow modify selected topics. Next list introduces some of these tools:

• Add class... adds new class to selected topics. Wandora asks the user which topic is the new class. Only one class may be added to selected topics at once.
• Add instance... adds new instance to selected topics. Wandora asks the user which topic is the new instance. Only one instance may be added to selected topics at once.
• Delete is used to remove selected topics from Wandora. Wandora confirms the deletion. Deletion is irreversible. When topic is deleted, also topic's associations and text datas are deleted.
• Duplicate topics creates new topic for each selected topic. New topic inherits all associations and text datas from the original topic. Base name, subject locator, and subject identifiers of the new topic are similar to the original but have been slightly modified to prevent instant merge.
• Split topic with SIs creates new topic for each subject identifier in selected topics. New topic gets not only one subject identifier from the original topic but also associations and text datas are copied. To prevent instant merge the subject identifier is removed from the original topic.
• Split topic with base name creates new topic for each token found in topic's base name. Tokens are recognized with user given regular expression. Each new topic inherits also associations and text datas from the original topic.
• Merge topics allows the Wandora user to merge easily all selected topics.

Subject locators

• Open subject locator forks external application defined in Wandora options and passes the subject locator as a parameter to the application. By default the application refers to default WWW browser in Windows.
• Check subject locator checks if the subject locators of selected topics refer real Internet resources.
• Download subject locator makes local copy of subject locator resources.
• Move > Move subject locator makes local copy of subject locator resources and updates subject locator to the local resource.
• Move > Move to fileserver moves subject locator resources to a Wandora Piccolo file server and updates subject locator to the moved resource.
• Extract with SL is a collection of topic map extractors that download the subject locator resource and perform knowledge extractions to the resource. Available extractor collection is set with Tool Manager.

Subject identifiers

• Copy SIs copies all subject identifiers of selected topics to clipboard.
• Paste SIs injects clipboard URIs to selected topics as a subject identifiers. If selection contains multiple topics, subject identifier injection causes instant merge of selected topics.
• Remove references in SIs removes references in subject identifier URIs of selected topics.
• Regex replace SIs applies given regular expression to subject identifiers of selected topics.
• Fix SIs replaces all special characters in subject identifiers with underscore.
• Flatten identity removes all but one subject identifier in selected topics.
• Remove SIs with regex... removes all subject identifiers in selected topics that match with given regular expression.
• Make SI with SL copies the subject locator to topics subject identifier.
• Make SI with base name constructs new subject identifier to topic with topic's base name.
• Make SI with text data constructs new subject identifier to topic with topic's text data.

Base names

• Regexp replace applies given regular expression to base name of selected topics.
• Remove new line characters is required as Wandora views only first line of base name with multiple lines. Tool replaces new line characters in selected topics with a space character.
• Remove base name is used to completely removing base name of selected topics. Base name removal is required to make room for new base name constructed using subject identifier for example.
• Make base name with SI
• Make base name with text data

Variant names

• Regexp replace
• Remove new line characters
• Remove all empty variant names
• Remove all variant names
• Remove variant names
• Make display variants with base name

Associations

• Delete associations with type deletes all associations within selected topics of given type.
• Delete all associations deletes all associations within selected topics. Class-Instance relation is not considered as an association.
• Break binary association topic
• Steal associations
• Make associations with text datas
• Make superclass of current associates all selected topics to the current topic (i.e. the one that is open in topic panel) with a Superclass-Subclass type. Selected topic is given a role of Superclass and current topic is considered as a Subclass.
• Make subclass of current associates all selected topics to the current topic (i.e. the one that is open in topic panel) with a Superclass-Subclass type. Selected topic is given a role of Subclass and current topic is considered as a Superclass.

Occurrences

• Delete occurrences with type requests type topic and removes all occurrences of the given type.
• Delete all occurrences deletes all occurrences in selected topics.
• Regex replace performs regular expression replace to all occurrences found in selected topics.