Forest display

The Forest display is invoked from a keyset via the "More Info" button. The display shows the contents of the keyset (excluding empty objects) as a list of objects in their "tree" form (similar to text windows). The Forest controls can be used to choose which parts of the object are actually visible, i.e. which branches of the model to show or hide. This display does not behave well with keysets containing items from different classes.

Buttons:

Quit:

quits the display

Help:

invokes on-line help (not yet written)

Print:

invokes the Print/Mail selection tool which allows printing, mailing or saving the forest document as a file.

Discard/Undiscard:

The discard button to the right of each object when clicked will remove that object from the display. Undiscard will sequentially restore the objects, with the most recently removed being restored first. A running commentary below the buttons details total number of displayable objects, the number currently displayed, and the number discarded.

Export:

Creates keyset containing objects currently displayed. Discarded objects are not exported. The user is asked to name the new keyset via a "please reply" box.

Save as:

Saves currently displayed objects as named keyset.

Biblio:

Invokes the biblio display if the objects in the Forest display qucontain references to Paper objects. If there are no references to paper objects, the operation aborts with a dialog box.

Model show/hide:

Inserts/removes model at top of window. All tags will be green initially (see below).

Tags hide:

Hides all tags in the individual objects. Colours the tags in the model red. (see below).

Tags show:

Returns the information associated with the tags to the display. Recolours the tags in the model green (see below).

When the model is shown, it only contains the tags being used by the currently displayed objects which are actually visible in the window. To see the complete model, double-click the boldface "Model". The individual tags can be selected by the user and have three states. Green indicates that the tag and any information following it is visible. Yellow indicates that the tag has been collapsed. Red indicates that the tag is hidden. Repeated clicks will cycle through the three states. The "Tags hide" button will hide all tags regardless of their state. "Tags show" will show all tags and reset them to green.

The behaviour of the Forest display depends on exactly which objects are visible within the borders of the window. For example, when using the "Tags hide" button, objects in effect take up less screen space. Consequently, objects which had been outside the boundary of the display may now move into the visible area. These new objects may have additional (new) tags associated with them. These tags will be visible in the objects and will be added to the model and coloured green. Clicking "tags hide" again will hide these new tags. Other events may also have this effect, for example as objects are discarded or undiscarded, as the list is scrolled (see Scroll Bar), or as the window is resized.

Select:

en francais, does not seem to do anything.

Arrow controls:

single arrow scrolls one object at a time (up or down) two arrows scrolls a window-full [we think].

Scroll Bar:

The green bar indicates which objects out of the entire keyset are in view. Scroll with the middle button on the mouse by grabbing and moving the green bar up or down.

Go to:

Scrolls to the first object that matches the string. Ma would scroll to the first object starting with the letter Ma.

bug--print
bug--in model turning a tag red should turn all tags
to the right red too.
bug--This display does not behave well with keysets containing items
from different classes.
bug--Select: en francais, does not seem to do anything.
extension: attach?
question: is this an object editing environment?

last edited: Septembre 1997