[seek-kr-sms] GrOWL -metadata panel design.

[Rich Williams]

While I appreciate the desire for simplicity, I don't think the issue of
namespaces can be entirely avoided, though it can and should largely be
buried and hidden from the average user.  I think the issues are more
present when editing an ontology than when browsing, but even when browsing,
namespace prefixes might be necessary to accurately disambiguate concept
names.  To completely suppress namespace prefixes is essentially adding a
more stringent naming requirement than currently exists in OWL.  It would
require that names be globally unique, rather than just unique within a
namespace.  If GrOWL is to be a general purpose ontology browsing and
editing tool, this requirement cannot be enforced, and so some level of
namespace exposure is inevitable.  Of course it shouldn't be something
staring the first-time user in the face, but I think it does need to be
dealt with.

Remember also that Serguei was asking about the UI for ontology metadata in
general, not just about the UI for imports and namespaces.  Even if
namespaces are not exposed, there still needs to be a UI (panel/dialog/tab)
for this other metadata.

Rich

-----Original Message-----
From: seek-kr-sms-admin at ecoinformatics.org
[mailto:seek-kr-sms-admin at ecoinformatics.org]On Behalf Of Matt Jones
Sent: Monday, June 28, 2004 12:28 PM
To: Shawn Bowers
Cc: Serguei Krivov; seek-kr-sms at ecoinformatics.org
Subject: Re: [seek-kr-sms] GrOWL -metadata panel design.


I have to agree with Shawn -- our end users really should not be exposed
to technical details such as namespace URIs and similar constructs at
all.  If unique namespace URI's are needed, Growl should be generating
and tracking them for the user.  They'll have a hard enough time
wrestling with just the ecological concepts in a formal manner. So I
would add #4:

#4: No namespaces exposed in GUI whatsoever

Matt

Shawn Bowers wrote:
>
> I am not entirely sure what you are asking. If you could craft up some
> screen shots of what you are thinking that would really help.
>
> My general opinion is that namespace names are useful (if people
> organize ontologies around these), namespaces (as URIs) for people to
> view are not and shouldn't be integrated into the graphical interface.
> If someone really wants to see them, then I would suggest using a
> different window (for "expert" mode) that lists namespace names and
> their corresponding URI.
>
> Also, how do you see people using namespaces in your editor? How are you
> going to present them to a user in terms of modeling constructs? E.g.,
> are you going to view each namespace as an "ontology"? Are there
> operations you are planning on supporting over namespaces (like get all
> concepts from a namespace)?
>
>
> Shawn
>
>
> Serguei Krivov wrote:
>
>> Hi All,
>>
>> We are getting close to graphic editing support for main owl
>> constructs- this was a difficult part. Now we can also think about
>> easy things like icons for editing toolbox and  editing metadata for
>> ontologies.  The later point however brings certain hard questions.
>> Metadata pane should contain comments, author information and
>> namespaces-imported, default etc. If authors info and comments could
>> easily go into one more side panel,  it may be not so easy with
>> namespaces. There are at least 3 options:
>>
>>
>>
>> #1 Put namespaces on side panels. Pros –easy to make, cons- namespaces
>> will be wrapped since they need long field
>>
>> #2 Put namespaces on popup dialog. Pros- easy to make, cons –not
>> aesthetically appealing
>>
>> #3 Create tab panel. One tab contains present view , another contains
>> metadata view. Pros- aesthetically appealing, cons – perhaps may
>> require more work.
>>
>>
>>
>> Would you please vote or give your suggestions. Any better option (#4,
>> #5,…)
>>
>>
>>
>> Thanks,
>>
>> Serguei
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>
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--
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Matt Jones                                     jones at nceas.ucsb.edu
http://www.nceas.ucsb.edu/    Fax: 425-920-2439    Ph: 907-789-0496
National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis (NCEAS)
University of California Santa Barbara
Interested in ecological informatics? http://www.ecoinformatics.org
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