User Interface Overview

TopBraid Composer consists of the following views and editors:

• Project Explorer shows the files in the workspace
• Classes, Properties and Associations views display the hierarchies of the current model
• Instances shows the instances of the class selected in the Classes View
• Domain shows those properties that have the selected class in their domain
• Relevant Properties shows those properties that are likely to have values for the current resource
• Inheritance shows the superclasses and inherited restrictions of the current class
• Imports shows the imports of the ontology (hierarchically)
• Change History shows the recent edit steps
• Resource Editor is the main work area, it shows the currently selected resource
• SPARQL provides an interface to run SPARQL queries
• JavaScript provides a simple interface to execute JavaScript against TopBraid graphs
• JavaScript Query provides a simple interface to execute JavaScript queries against TopBraid graphs
• Text Search supports looking up resources by string values and regular expressions
• SPIN Statistics shows statistics about the execution time of SPIN queries
• Triples View shows all RDF triples in your current model
• File Registry shows a list of all files together with their namespaces
• Basket can be used as a flexible drag-and-drop area for many purposes
• Problems View shows violations of constraints in your ontologies
• Task View can be used to manage open issues with a TODO item list
• Matrix View can be used to visualize information for creating mash-ups
• Web Data Basket View can be used to incrementally collect RDF triples from visited web pages
• SHACL Validation and Shapes Views for SHACL support

The behavior and appearance of many of the views and editors can be customized in the Preferences dialog box.

Opening Views

If a view does not appear in the TopBraid Composer perspective, use Window > Show View to choose a view and make it visible.

Labels Display Mode

TopBraid Composer supports two modes for displaying the labels of resources, for example in the classes tree and on forms: qnames and human-readable labels. The main tool bar has a button for switching between those two modes .

By default, resources are displayed with their "qname". A qname consists of a prefix and a local name. For example, the resource http://example.org/ontology#Person would be displayed as ex:Person if the namespace http://example.org/ontology# is abbreviated with the prefix ex. qnames make it easy to identify the namespace, which is especially relevant if your project consists of multiple files or modules. Furthermore, qnames are used in the syntax of all common RDF serializations as well as several languages including SPARQL. The following image shows the the Classes and Associations view in qnames.

In the "human-readable" labels mode, the system will try to display resources by their rdfs:labels (or sub-properties of rdfs:label). If no such labels are found, or if there is a name conflict between multiple resources with the same label, then the system will fall back to displaying qnames as above. Human-readable labels are a good choice if the model contains cryptic URIs/qnames, or if you want to switch between languages. The preferred label language(s) can be configured in the main TopBraid Composer preferences page. The following image show the same model as the previous image in the labels mode.

View Specific Icons and Menu Options

As shown in the screenshot of the Classes View below, each view has a set of icons unique to the view. These are used to create and delete objects. In this example, they are icons for creating , and deleting classes. In most cases, these commands (and additional items) are also accessible from the drop-down menu to the right of the icons.

Opening, Moving and Resizing Views

To open or reopen a closed view, select Window > Show View from the main menu bar, then select the view to open it.

All Composer views can be dragged and rearranged as necessary. They can also be resized, collapsed and expanded.

To move a view, click on the tab with its name (the tab color will become blue) and move it to the desired location.

Drag and Drop

Drag and drop is available throughout the user interface. Class and property trees can be rearranged using drag and drop. Resources can be dragged and dropped on to the Resource Editor or into the Domain View. Drag and drop can also be used to move objects between ontologies. In many cases you will find the Basket view as a very convenient place to drop and collect resources.

Navigation

There is always one selected ontology model, and one selected ontology resource (class, property, individual, etc). The selected resource must always be from the selected model. The Resource Editor displays the currently selected resource, which is also shown in the toolbar. In the screenshot below, the class "Accommodation" is selected.

A resource can be selected in various ways. In most views, you can double-click on the name or icon of the resource. If you click directly on the icon, then a single click is sufficient to select it. Alternatively, if a tree or list of resources has the keyboard focus, you can press Alt+UP/DOWN to change the global selection. Finally, you can enter the name of the resource in the toolbar field shown above. Here, CTRL+Space will help you enter a full name if you only enter the first few characters.

If a file is double-clicked in the Project Explorer, it will be loaded (unless it has been already opened and loaded, in which case it becomes the selected ontology model). When an owl file is first loaded into Composer, the selected resource is the main owl:Ontology in the file. It is displayed in the Resource Editor, enabling you to view and edit the namespaces.

Backward (ALT+Left) and forward (ALT+Right) arrows on Composer's tool bar enable quick navigation between current and previously selected resources.

On the forms, hover over a name with CTRL pressed to navigate to the resource under the mouse: