Overview of PROMPT

The PROMPT tab allows you to manage multiple ontologies in Protégé.
Using PROMPT you can:
- compare two versions of the same ontology and create a merged version
- move frames from included to including project;
- merge two ontologies into one;
- extract a part of an ontology;
Except for move frames, these operations create a copy of the ontology in your
working project and leave the original project intact. In the case of move
frames,
however, both the included and including projects are changed.
Comparing two versions of the same ontology
This mode (PromptDiff) allows you to compare two different versions of the
same ontology. Prompt uses a set of heuristics to compare two versions of an
ontology and find corresponding frames in the two versions. In addition to comparing
names and types of the frames, PromptDiff looks at the structure of two versions,
suggesting, for example, that a single unmatched sibling of the same parent
in the two different versions may be the same frame with a different name. By
concentrating on the differences between two similar projects (rather than the
similarities of two different projects as in merge), compare can give much better
results for the type of reconciliation required in version control. For
more information, see Compare Mode.
Moving frames from included to including project
Protégé facilitates reuse and development of ontologies through
the project-inclusion mechanism: One project can include one or several other
projects and reuse all frames from the included projects. The "moving frames"
mode of the PROMPT tab allows you to move frames between projects. You can move
the frames in both directions: from the included project into the including one,
or vice versa. Thus, you will be altering both projects. When moving a frame,
you can choose everything that must be moved in order for the projects to remain
consistent. An included project should always stand on its own, therefore, no
frame in the included project should depend on a frame in the including project.
You can also choose to perform the process frame-by-frame. There is a running
list of conflicts to help you sever all the dependencies from included to including
project in the latter mode. For more information, see Moving
Frames Mode.
Merging ontologies
PROMPT (more specifically, iPrompt) is an interactive ontology-merging tool. It
guides you through the merging process making suggestions, determining conflicts,
and proposing conflict-resolution strategies. The initial suggestions are based
on the linguistic similarity of the frame names. After you select an operation
to perform, iPROMPT determines which conflicts in the merged ontology the operation
may have caused and proposes possible solutions to the conflicts. It then considers
the structure of the ontology around the arguments to the latest operations and
proposes other operations that you should perform. For more information, see Merge
Mode.
Extracting a part of an ontology
Sometimes, you may want to save only part of your ontology for various reasons:
to use some subset of the knowledge base in a different project, to distribute
only part of your ontology, to debug a smaller portion of it, and so on. The PROMPT
tab allows you to pick and choose frames and then copy them into your local project.
You can choose a frame and copy everything related to the frame (the transitive
closure of what the frame refers to); you can instruct PROMPT to follow only specific
links for specific number of steps, and so on. PROMPT keeps a running list of
referenced frames that you have not yet copied. For more information, see Extract
Mode.
Next: Setting Up PROMPT
Prompt Table of Contents