THE PANELS OF ISTAR

Page not yet finished, but most info present. Please note: The panel images are in Amiga .iff format. PC-users can view these with ?MSWord if you download them.

Here we describe some of the panels you will encounter in using Istar. Those not described here should be fairly obvious once you know these.

• Screens
• The Initial Control Panel
• Preferences
• The Knowledge Base Panel
  • To Create a New Item Type
  • Creating a New Relationship Type
  • Creating a New Attribute Type (Domain)
• The KB Details Panel
• The Easel Control Panel

• The Attribute Details Panel
• The User Texts Panel
• The Attribute Action Panel
• The Item Details Panel
• The Relationship Instance Details Panel
• The Weights Panel
• Item Type Panel
  • Items for Semantic Nets
  • Items as Database Records
  • Items as Free Attributes
• Attribute Type (Domain) Panel
• Attribute Types List Panel
• New Item Attribute Panel
• New Domain Panel
• Relationship Type Panel

• Topics of an Item
• Topics Control Panel
• Finding Something by Name
• Make Lists of Things

• Panel List Boxes
• End User Panels
• User Question Panel
• The End User Form
• The User Help Panel

• Document Creation Panel

NOTE: If you want, you can get an IFF file dump of each panel by activating its window, placing cursor over its background and pressing RAmiga-RShift-W. The result is stored in ram: disk as [hex.addr].iff.

THE SCREENS

The control screen usually resides along the bottom and can be moved manually using the two-pixel strips along its top. Then there is a thin backdrop window that shows the meanings of items. Important on this window is the gadget at the left hand end with two arrows. This moves the control screen up and down quickly.

The Initial Control Panel

This small panel resides top left corner of the control screen. It has one column of buttons that are relevant to the program itself, even when there is no KB - things like 'About' and 'Quit'. The 'Errors' button allows you to explore the various levels of any error that occurs, though it is perhaps of more use to technical users.

The 'Prefs' button takes you to the Preferences Panel.

But, to get going, use 'New' or 'Get KB', which will, respectively, create a new KB for you or load an existing one. When a KB is successfully loaded the main easel will appear and on the control screen a KB panel will appear. You can load or create any number of KBs (depending on memory), each with a drawing easel and each with its own KB panel.

(In version 1.01 you could only have a single KB at a time and there was no KB panel. Instead, the main control panel held three columns of buttons and there were separate panels to select item type, relationship type and to show the goal list.)

The 'Prefs' button brings up a Preferences panel.

The Preferences Panel

This panel is being developed. You should normally only alter it right at the start of the program at present, as some of its facilities have little or no effect after a KB has arisen. Try things and see: if it works, fine, if not, remember to set it at start next time.

Its main purpose is to set a few parameters relating to new knowledge bases (standard values in brackets):

• # Size and name of new KB (50,000 LWs and 30%)
• # Size and depth of its main Easel (30 by 24 inches)

Dimensions are measured in 1/256 of inch (approx. tenth of a millimetre).

It also allows you to set the amount by which all main Easels scroll and to select fonts for:

• # Main Easel
• # Question panels
• # Documents (not yet used)

Note that changes to the main easel font are only effective next easel you bring up.

Main Knowledge Base Panel

First column are to do with current KB:

• Save
• Save As
• KB Dump - to export ASCII translations of the KB
• Easel - to manage the main Easel
• KB Area - to see details and rename: KBA Panel
• Clone KB (not yet working)
• Rid - to get rid of the KB

Second column are to do with the knowledge in the current KB:

• See Easel - when multi KBs, to bring Easel to front
• Infer Goals (to start a run)
• Goal List (three part; see below)
• Documents (to create a document from a goal list)
• Att Types (to manage attribute types)
• Topics (to manage topics)
• Lists (to manage lists)
• Find (to search for item etc. by name or sub-string)

Over the right hand half are two lists that are standard panel lists. Above, is the Item Types list. This is perhaps the most frequently used, as you change item type. Adjoining it are buttons to create a new item type, see and edit an existing type, and get rid of an item type (dangerous, since you lose all items of that type; try it on a dummy KB you have created for the purpose!).

Below right is the Relationship Types list, with buttons to create a new relationship type or edit an existing one. You will seldom use this list, except when you are making up specific relationships.

Program-wise, the KB Panel is controlled internally by a yyModuleKBData (where yy is the signature of the module that is the program, e.g. 'kt' for Istar or 'nn' for Annotator) structure which holds all information that pertains to the access to this particular knowledge base by this particular running of this program (or, strictly, module). Normally it would hold the addresses of gadgets for the KB Panel. In this way we obtain an easy way for any program to have any number of KBs active at any time, each having different current item types etc.

Second column of KB Panel, in the middle, there is a three-part gadget which has the name of the current goal list in its middle. Left wee button allows you to select a new goal list from among the lists currently in the KB. Right wee 'S' button will bring up the goal lists's Item Details Panel so you can peruse and, if needed, reorder, the goals in the list. Hitting the ResetGoals and InferGoals buttons operate of the current goal list.

Creating a New Item Type

Creating a New Relationship Type

To Create a New Domain (Attribute Type)

At any time you can create one by hitting the 'Att Types' button in the second column of the KB Panel. This brings up a panel of currently available domains. Hit the adjoining 'New' button, and up comes the New Domain Panel.

Or you can create one while in the process of adding an attribute to an item or an item type - which is convenient since it is often at that point that you realise the domain you need is not available. To start this, you hit the 'New' button adjoining a list of attributes, and this brings up the New Item Attribute Panel from which you can access the New Domain Panel.

The KB Details Panel

Hit the 'KB Area' button on KB panel, and up comes the 'Knowledge Base Area' (KBA) panel, which tells you various details about the KB itself. The most useful things are:

• Name: You can change the name of your KB, up to 40 chars.
• DSA % Expansion: Make this higher for dynamic KBs; it is the amount (as a %) of free space ('virgin glass' if we use the metaphor of recycling glass bottles) created in the KB when it is next loaded. Standard value is 30%, which gives plenty for the average knowledge engineering session. DSA means 'Data Structure Area' - where almost everything goes.
• Min DSA: 30% of zero is zero, which is a problem when your KB is young. So we also stipulate a minimum size for the DSA. Standard value is 50,000 longwords (200,000 bytes).

• KBA at: The address in memory of the start of the KBA. Decimal.
• Actual size: Actual size in memory (bytes).
• Blocks: How many separate blocks in the KB. An Istar free attribute typically comprises around 10 blocks.
• Bottles and Glass: This shows how much 'free space' or 'glass' there is to be recycled. Bottles shows how many separate pieces, Glass the total amount (in bytes). Usually only of minor interest, except when the KB gets fragmented.

• Version: Ignore this. At present always 0. It is the version of software, NOT of the knowledge you have put there.
• Max Ring Length: Occasionally this is used to check against infinite loops, but not always. Usually ignore it at 9999.
• Tasks: How many Amiga tasks are currently sharing this. Always 1 at present (the current task).
• 'R' button bottom left, exports ring details (for s/w developers).

Easel Control Panel

This panel, as yet poorly designed, allows you to do three things at present:

• Export the contents of the main Easel (as shown), either as IFF or Postscript.
• Alter colours of easel pens (enter pen number and alter sliders) (Note: there is no reset, and the effects of moving sliders is immediate and not undone by exiting the panel.)
• Resize the easel, either immediately or on next KB load.

The Attribute Details Panel

(Because this is complex panel, you might find it useful to bring up its imagemap which explains each of its gadgets individually.)

The Attribute Details panel for an attribute gives lots of information about it. The main way to bring it up is to click with RMB on an attribute box, but it will also come up if you hit the 'See' button of any panel list that shows attributes. The panel is multi-threading so that you can have any number of them up at once and can continue to operate the main easel and other panels the while.

For details of this panel, see p.adp.html, which shows an example as an imagemap to all its parts. The information it contains includes:

• Name and meaning, and DSAP of attribute
• Type and current value, and whether to show value on easel
• Current state: whether answered, etc.
• The item it belongs to, with 'See' button to take you to it
• Antecedent and consequent attributes and items
• Derivation: constant, inferred, user-supplied and asynchronous
• Inference method and cutoffs
• Whether overridable, text for override and whether overridden
• Exit buttons.

The User Texts Panel

(This is available only from Version 1.0872. Before that, some user texts are set up on the Attribute Details Panel).

The User Texts Panel allows you to set up texts that the user will experience when running the KB. There are a number of texts, with various purposes, and a means of moving and swapping texts around. The texts that can be set from the panel include:

• The Label of the attribute as seen on the main easel. (This is also settable on the Attribute Details Panel.)

• The Meaning of the attribute. (This is also settable on the Attribute Details Panel.)

• Question Text: Text put to the user when the value of this attribute is being asked of them.

• Form Text: A shortened version of the Question Text for use on Forms. The space indicated is approximately that available on the Form.

• Override Text: Like Question Text, but allows different wording to be presented when overriding the attribute's value.

• Help Texts: There are eight of these, the first one labelled 'Help' and seven others labelled '.. 1' to '.. 7'. These are brought up for the user when s/he hits one of the Help buttons on the User Answer Panel. You may use the different help texts for any purpose you like, for instance text 1 is used to define terms, text 4 to give hints on how to seek the information being asked for, etc. But be sure to communicate these conventions to the user!

• Temporary Text 'T': This text is for holding temporary texts. Its main purpose is to allow text to be copied to the other texts or swapped with them (as notified by the state of the cycle gadget to its left). Note that the T text is persistent in the KB. Once you have finished with it you should empty it (using e.g. Amiga-X).

• The 'T' Buttons: Hitting one of these will modify the text alongside the button, either copying the T Text to this text or swapping them. Which happens depends on the cycle gadget by the T Text. By a sequence of T hits, with suitable altering of the cycle gadget, you can duplicate, move, swap texts. Note that all such alterations are accomplished via the T Text.

The Attribute Action Panel

The Attribute Action Panel is a small panel with various buttons allowing you to take action on the attribute. It is intended for use by the knowledge engineer. The panel is small so you can have several in view, for several attributes in which you have an interest. The buttons include (different panel for before version 1.1):

• 'Infer' (top left): Start an inference session from this attribute as its only goal. All its antecedents are reset and you should get the first User Question Panel.

• 'INR' (Infer, No Reset): As above, but don't reset before. Sometimes you want to retain a number of answered values without having to answer them.

• 'Resume': Resume from a paused inference session.

• 'ResetAntes': Just do a reset of the antecedents of this attribute. Hitting 'ResetAntes' then 'INR' is equivalent to hitting 'Infer'.

• 'Override' (middle, only present if overriding allowed on the attribute): Hit this to bring up a question panel that will ask a value and place it in the attribute's override slot.

• 'Add Goal' (top middle): Hit this to add this attribute to the current goal list.

• 'Rid' (bottom middle): Hit this to remove the attribute. WARNING: You are not asked to confirm deletion, and when you delete all its relationships are deleted too; so be careful.

• 'Data..' (top right): A short cut to the Attribute Details Panel.

• 'Texts..' Bring up the User Texts Panel.

• 'Done' (bottom right): To send the panel away.

Prior to version 1.1, this panel had different buttons on the left hand side. Its 'Infer' button did NOT do a reset; you had to hit the 'Reset' button first in most cases.

The Item Details Panel

The item details panel can be accessed by clicking the 'See' button on the attribute details panel attached to the item name. It will also appear if you click on an item box on the easel, such as a form.

Most of it is straightforward, such as label/name and meaning.

There is a list of attributes it contains at the bottom. With this you can select an attribute and bring up its panel with 'See', create new attributes by hitting 'New' (at which point the New Attribute Panel comes up, and you can delete attributes from an item. Note that you can add an attribute to an item without adding it to the item type. You can also rearrange the attributes in the item using the '1' and 'n' buttons, in which case you will find that on the easel they are also rearranged.

On the left and right half way down are two lists of other things the item relates to (all types of relationship). These are standard list boxes so that you can go to the thing, rearrange things, etc.

You can attach an item to topics as by hitting the 'topics' button.

There might be other things, such as form text.

New Item Attribute Panel

This panel adds a new attribute to an item, item type, relationship, or relationship type. Follow the instruction 1,2,3. Select a domain (attribute type), give it a name, and a meaning. If the domain does not exist, hit the 'New Domain' button and up comes the New Domain Panel so you can create one.

The Relationship Instance Details Panel

The relationship details panel comes up if you click on a link on the main easel or if you click the wee 'R' button in a list box on a panel. It gives details about the relationship, including antecedent and consequent.

The main things of interest are the unary operator, and the weight. The use of these is explained in the Using Istar document. Note that if you change the type, unary operator or weight then the visual appearance of the easelpiece of the relationship can change. For inference relationships the colour can switch between the main and the negative pen colours, depending on whether the uop or weight invert the effects of the antecedent.

The Explain button brings up an explanation of what would happen when inference is performed with this relationship.

The Weights Panel

This panel is a convenience to the knowledge engineer. It allows you to set the weights of all the inference antecedents (or consequents) of an attribute. In the ICT project we found setting the bayesian weights a cumbersome operation, especially when we wanted to set the weight of one antecedent relevant to others. This panel allows you to do this; it is accessible by hitting the 'Wts' buttons on the Attribute Details Panel beside the lists of antecedents or consequents (available from version 1.1 onwards). (Actually, not always all the weights: only as many as will fit on the panel; in the rare cases you have more, you will have to set the further ones separately - or else move the further ones up the list, use this panel, and then move them back again.)

This panel had a bug in version 1.1.

Item Type Panel

The Item Type Panel shows details of an item type. Normally you will see it when you create a new item type but sometimes you may wish to alter details of an existing one. When creating a new item type:

• Enter the name for the item type.

• Ignore all the checkboxes for now.

• What colours do you want? First Pen gives colour of label, if any. Second Pen gives colour of outline box. Pattern gives pattern for outline box. Similar to Relationship Type Panel. (This is not available in versions earlier than 1.03.)

• What attributes should it have? What standard relationships? At this point you would set these; but what you do will depend on the use of items of this type, whether they are:
  • part of a semantic network,
  • part of a database,
  • holders of free attributes.
  In any case, you can create attributes later, and even change the usage.

• Click the 'OK' button. Type made.

(The new type is automatically selected for drawing.)

Items for Semantic Net

• Click 'New' button under Item Type list on the KB panel.
• Enter the name for it.
• Ignore all the checkboxes for now.
• What colours do you want?

• Do you want any relationship types? There are four type gadgets mid- panel, showing 'None' and labelled 'Left', 'Right', 'Top' and 'Bottom'. These allow you to set up to for standard relationship types that can be drawn from this type of item, according to the edge from which you start drawing. See below for details. Click the 'Right' one. Up comes a list of relationship types. [Bug in early version 1.03: If there is more than one KB active, the list will not appear; get rid of all but this KB.] Select one, such as 'Precedence' and click the 'OK' button.

• Click the 'OK' button on the Item Types Panel.

Now you're done, draw two items of this new type on the easel. Draw a link from the right hand edge of the left one to the other. It should draw a Precedence (or your chosen) relationship; you can check this by bringing up the Relationship Instance Details panel for the relationship.

Note that we did not set the 'Left' relationship type. We could do so. But when it is 'None' then the type drawn will be that shown selected in the Relationship Types List on the KB panel. (For top and bottom types, 'None' means 'do not draw from here'; for details, see drawing different rel types.

Items as Database Records

• Click 'New' button under Item Type list on the KB panel.
• Enter the name for it.
• Ignore all the checkboxes for now.
• What colours do you want?

• Down the bottom is the attribute list. Hit the adjoining 'New' button.

• Up comes a smaller panel to add an attribute; take the steps indicated. You can create new attribute types at this point if you need to.

• Keep adding attributes as needed.

  # Click the 'OK' button.

Items as Free Attributes

• Click 'New' button under Item Type list on the KB panel.
• Enter the name for it.
• Ignore all the checkboxes for now.

• Hit the 'Own box' gadget to turn it off - meaning that no item box is drawn.

• Ignore the colours and pattern since they refer only to the item box, not to the (attribute) box that is seen.

• Create exactly one attribute as above, by hitting the 'New' button adjoining the attribute list. Up comes a smaller panel to add an attribute; take the steps indicated. You can create new attribute types at this point if you need to.

• Hit the 'OK' button.

You can also create a free attribute item type via the Attribute Type Panel.

Attribute Types List Panel

This panel is a standard panel list. It shows the currently available domains (attribute types) plus a few other buttons:

• 'See' button: Brings up the Attribute Type Panel which allows you to change various details of the selected domain.
• 'New' button: Brings up the New Domain Panel which creates a new domain.
• 'Rid' button: Gets rid of the selected domain (attribute type), asking you first.
• '1', 'n' buttons: Moves the chosen domain up and down the list.

Attribute Type (Domain) Panel

This panel shows the details of an attribute type (domain), including standard things like its name, meaning, value type, and visual appearance. In addition it has a list of Value Names, especially for use in enumerated and ordinal types, and a button that creates a free attribute item type for it.

New Domain Panel

This panel allows you to create a new domain (attribute type). You will probably use it most to create enumerated and ordinal types. It is fairly simple process, in which the steps are numbered for you, 1,2,3:

1. Select the value type for the domain.
2. Enter a name for it.
3. Enter a meaning for it, if any.
4. Hit 'OK'

Relationship Type Panel

This panel allows you to define or change the details for the relationship type, including its name, its usage syntax and semantics, and the visual appearance of the lines that express its instances on the main easel.

• Enter a name.

• Usage syntax: Is it DAG or not? If DAG (Directed Acyclic Graph) then you cannot form cycles with instances of this type of relationship. That is, you cannot build a KB with links e.g. from A to B, B to C, C to D, and D back to A (though you can have A to B, B to C, C to D and A to D). Many types of relationship are DAGs, e.g. most dependencies.

• Usage semantics: If it is DAG, does this type of relationship perform inference? Usually not.

• Pens and pattern. The two pens can define the colours in which instances of this type of relationship will be drawn for positive and negative versions of the relationship. If either is zero then a default colour will be used that indicates whether the relationship is a DAG, is inference or not. The pattern is 16 pixels repeated along the line. Usually used to give visual indication of type of relationship.

• Do relationship instances of this type have any attributes? If so, add them one by one as for an item type.

• When done, click the 'Change' button (or 'Cancel').

Note that, though now selected in the Relationship Types list in the KB Panel, the next relationship you draw might not be of this type, since the selected item type might have a standard relationship type.

Note that if you alter the visual appearance, existing instances of this type will not be altered in visual appearance. But new instances will take on the new appearance. Also, when you bring up a Relationship Details panel and click 'OK' the visual appearance will change.

BEWARE: Do not change parameters of the standard relationship types (though you may change their visual appearance to suit your tastes). In particular, if you make 'Inference' to be not a DAG you will be allowed to create an infinite loop in the KB.

Topics of Item

The Topics panel is brought up for an item, attribute or relationship and shows one or more banks of checkboxes, each with the name of a topic. You can link your thing to any of the topics shown by ticking the appropriate boxes. You can set up new topics by bringing up the Topics Panel, described next.

The above example shows two different uses of topics:

• For 'real' topics such as the contractor's responsibility, the works, control of works and design (which this item is linked to).
• For 'administrative' topics useful to the knowledge engineer while developing the KB, such as 'look at later' or 'I have reversed the antecedents of this item', which is a note to yourself for later action. (When all these have been dealt with you might wish to get rid of those topics.)

Topics Control Panel

This panel, brought up when you hit the 'Topics' button on KB Panel, allows you to:

• See, on the main easel, the items linked to a topic of your choice, by:
  1. Hit the 'HideAll' button to clear the easel
  2. Select topic from list
  3. Hit the 'Show' button
  4. You may repeat steps 2,3 to build up a picture
• Hitting the 'MkList' button will make a list of all things in a given topic (or is it all things shown? can't remember).
• Create new topics (fill in name and hit 'New)
• Arrange the topics list: reorder using 1,n buttons or remove a topic with the 'Rid' button
• See topic as an item (select it and hit 'See')

References

The List Panel: Make Lists of Things

The Lists Panel is used to form lists of things, rather like performing a database 'select' or 'join' from the KB. The lists themselves can then be used to create other lists from. It requires a two-step operation which is shown on the panel as two long cycle buttons, the width of the panel, and various detail gadgets below them:

• First, the source for the list. It could be all attributes, items and/or relationships, or it could be all instances of a particular type, or it could be all members of an existing list, or it could be all those linked to members of an existing list. The last two are equivalent respectively to relational select and relational join in database terminology.

• Second, which of the elements in source to select? It could be all of them, or only those that fulfil certain conditions, or all those except them. The conditions as present are fairly simple: containing a text in their names or meanings, attributes that are answered etc., topological conditions, or (from version 1.12) those found in another list.

• Third, hit the 'Do It' button, to create the list.

• You will be given item details panel for new list; enter a name for it. If it's not what you want, hit the Delete button, otherwise hit OK.

• Now you can see the selected items on Easel by hitting either the 'Show Them' or the '+Links' buttons on top row. (In fact you can use this to see contents of any list, but first selecting the list via the middle gadget on the top row.)

• You can export the details of the list by hitting the 'Export' button.

• You can then do another list creation. Hit 'Reset' button (bottom right) to reset most gadgets.

• To get rid of a list, select it with middle top gadget, hit 'See' to obtain its item details panel and hit Delete.

• When finished, hit 'Done' (top right). But remember: the lists you have created stay in your KB until you expressly get rid of it. So, from time to time, have a clear out.

You might notice that these operations are similar to various relational database operations. The source is the equivalent of a relational table, but is more sophisticated, especially being able to source from the whole DAG fans of things in a given list. To achieve each of the RDB operations do the following:

• SELECT: Switch second bar to select, and switch at least one of the 'Ignore this' conditions to 'Those that'. However, at present you cannot select on attribute value.
• PROJECT: Cannot be done because it doesn't make sense. The output is a list of things, not a table of values, and you get all attributes and properties of whatever is in your output list. Moreover, the output list can be a mix of things (items, atts, rels).
• JOIN: Switch source bar to 'From all things directly related to member of given list ..'. Choose a source list and a relationship to traverse. Second bar: 'Take all regardless' is a pure join; but you can also select as part of the operation by switching to the select or exclude options.
• INTERSECTION: Switch source bar to 'From members of given list ..'. Choose a source list. Switch second bar to select as above.
• MINUS: Switch source bar to 'From members of given list ..'. Choose a source list. Switch second bar to exclude as above.
• UNION: Cannot be done at present.
• TIMES: Not sure that can be done at present.

  Finding Something by Name

  

  This panel allows you to find an attribute, item, etc. either by portion of name or if you have its DSAP. On KB Panel, click the 'Find' button. This brings up the Find panel (which in the current version is rather sparse and empty). It allows you to find attributes, attribute types, items, item types, relationships, relationship types by sub-strings their names contain.

  # Enter the sub-string in the long string gadget at the top.

  # Then click either Item, Att or Rel, depending on what you want to find. It then brings up a panel for the thing found, if any: an attribute action panel, an item details panel or a relationship instance panel.

  # Note that it will search the types before the instances.

  # If it's not the one you want, send that panel away (Cancel or Done) and click Continue. It will continue the search from where it left off.

  # You can watch the number.

  # If you want to find the total number of items, attributes or relationships, clear the string gadget and hit the appropriate button. The number then shows you the total number, including the number of types.

  # (Note that in current version, Rel does not work.)

  Document Creation Panel

  

  This panel allows you create documents from a goal list (if the goal list contains attributes of text fragments). Follow the steps, 1,2,3, and then export the document if you wish. ('txt' export not available at present.) You can export after step 2 if you wish.

  ---

  Panel List Boxes

  A number of panels have lists of things from which you may select, and which are surrounded by various buttons:
  • 'See' button: Brings up the appropriate panel showing details of the selected thing and allowing you to change them.

  • 'R' button: Only relevant when the list is of things related to the current thing, this button brings up details of the relationship to the selected thing, rather than of the selected thing itself.

  • 'X' button: In some cases this button provides a more detailed explanation than the 'See' or 'R' buttons.

  • 'New' button: Creates a new element for the list, of the appropriate type. Normally then another panel appears, allowing you to set details of the new thing.

  • 'Rid' or 'Rem' button: Gets rid of the selected thing, or remove the relationship to it.

  • '1', 'n' buttons: Moves the chosen domain up and down the list.

  ---

  End User Panels

  These are forms that appear during an inference session, when you hit either the 'Infergoals' button on the KB Panel or the 'infer' button on the Attribute Action Panel. That is, the end user sees them.

  User Question Panel

  

  This panel, presented during the inference process, asks for the value of one attribute. It has:

  • Some text that shows what is being asked for.
  • A gadget in the middle where the value is entered, and whose type is suited to the type of attribute (this one is a degree of belief, or a 'bayesian'; others occur below)
  • 'OK' button when you have entered the value.
  • 'Unknown' button if you want to say you don't know the value.
  • 'Pause' button to pause the inference process.
  • 'Help' buttons, to display any help text that there might be. Main 'Help' plus helps 1-7 if available (if blank, none available; on this one, only help 7 is available; on one below, helps 1,5 are available). Brings up the Help Panel.
  • 'Back Qns' button, that puts up a list of questions answered and allows you to reset them so that they come up next time.
  • (From version 1.08) Sometimes, an override button above 'OK'.
  • Small 'Att' button bottom left, useful to the knowledge engineer, as it brings up the User Texts Panel, and allows changes to be made in e.g. question text there and then (though the change does not appear immediately)
  • Small 'Cons' button, bottom left, which shows the consequent fan of the question on the easel, that is, what this question could affect. Very useful for both the knowledge engineer and the advanced user.

  Here are two more examples, of different value types: boolean and enumerated type. Note the rather tiny check box on the boolean; must make it look better!

  

  

  The End User Form

  

  It can be cumbersome to the user to be asked six questions one by one, especially when they all concern one entity, such as name, address, age, gender of a patient. Such attributes can be linked to a Form, so that if any one of them is needed then a Form panel is presented which requests them all.

  At present, the Form facility is simple, and has the following characteristics:

  • A full screen panel.
  • A short text to introduce the Form, e.g. "Please give the following information about the patient:". The text is in the Question font which can be set by the Preferences panel.
  • Up to about ten value gadgets down the middle or right half of the panel, with their texts down the left half.
  • The number ten is determined by the amount of space that each gadget takes up until all the Form space is used up. If there are more than this number of attributes on the form, then two or more forms are produced for the user until all are answered.
  • With each, a small 'H' button that brings up the User Help panel for that question.
  • Two buttons 'OK' and 'Pause'.

  Here is a form with bayesians, showing its use for another purpose, that of setting priorities among options:

  

  User Help Panel

  

  This panel comes up when you hit a Help button on either a question or form panel. There can be up to eight help texts, a main one and those numbered 1..7. If the latter are available then a number appears in their box. Hit any of the boxes to bring up the appropriate help text. (If a particular help text is not available, then the Meaning text or label will come up instead.) Hit 'Noted' when you have finished. The help texts are set up in the User Texts Panel.

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  Copyright (c) Andrew Basden 2 February 1998. 9 December 1998 Added User Text Panel. 23 September 1999 added most panels. 25 October 1999 wee changes to RI panel. 1 December 1999 more to Lists Panel. Noted panel dump key. 5 April 2000 re top and bottom relationship types.