Protege3DevDocs

Protege 3 Developer Documentation

Please note that this documentation refers *only* to the Protege 3.x series. For Protege 4, 5 and higher, please visit the links available here.

Programming Tips & Tricks

General (common to Protege-Frames & Protege-OWL)

• Accessing the Protege source code from SVN - check the dev.html
• Protege Programming Development Kit (PDK) - check the dev.html
• Setting up Eclipse for plug-in development - This is what you usually want
• Using and configuring Protégé's Ant build scripts

• Advanced
  • Compiling and Running Protege-Frames and OWL in a Java Development Environment (e.g., Eclipse) - Advanced: look here only if you want to compile yourself the Protege source code. Most developers do not need this.

• Working with forms
  • Adding and removing tabs programmatically
  • Using a Protege tab plug-in in your own application
  • Using Protege forms in other applications
  • Changing forms programtically
  • Making slot-widgets read-only programmatically
  • Working with the graph widget
• Client-Server (Multi-user mode)
  • Considerations when porting tab widget plug-ins to client-server mode
  • Adding and removing users programmatically in client-server mode
  • Accessing a remote protege server programatically
• Collaboration features
  • Accessing the collaboration features programmatically (Changes and Annotation API)
• Accessing the Lucene Query plug-in programatically
• Tips for handling multiple threads writing to a Protege knowledge-base
• How to implement compression over rmi
• Design and rationale for the Protege 3 database schema

Protege-OWL Specific

• Working with the Protege-OWL API
  • Protege-OWL API Programmer's Guide
  • Protege-OWL API Javadoc
  • How to import an ontology using the Protege-OWL API
  • How to invoke the Protege-OWL Java Code Generator using the API
  • Protege-OWL & Jena integration
• The Reasoning API
  • Protege-OWL reasoner API
  • Protege-OWL reasoner plug-in
• OWL Database
  • Converting an OWL file to the database backend using a script
  • Converting an OWL Model to a database project (code snippet)
  • How to load a Protege-OWL ontology from a Protege database using the API
  • How to convert an ontology stored in the databased to an OWL file using the API
• Configuring the User Interface using the API
  • How to use the OWL Classes panel in your own application
  • How to set the browser slot pattern to rdfs:label (or other property) using the API

Protege-Frames Specific

• How to load a Protege-Frames ontology from a Protege database using the API
  
  

Plug-in Development

• Notes for developers on migrating plug-ins to Protege 3.4 build 500 (and higher)
• Learn how to create a manifest and JAR file for your plug-in
• Tips for packaging your plug-in for distribution
• Instructions for declaring dependencies between Protege plug-ins
• How to make your plug-in's documentation available to users from within Protege