Protege4Views

Protege 4.x Views

This page contains a summary of the default views provided with Protege 4.x, many of which are not visible by default.

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Views are the building blocks of the P4 user interface. They can be placed anywhere on any tab and your setup will be persisted across P4 versions.

For notes on how to configure your user interface to include some of these views please see this section in our quick start guide.

Views are to be found in the View menu, and are categorised as below.

General views

Some views are very similar for multiple categories (particularly those for different entity types), and are therefore cross-referenced to here to avoid duplication.

Hierarchy views

The primary means of navigating around an ontology is the various hierarchy views that are shown on the left of a tab by default.

Selecting an entity in its tree causes a global selection update (making it possible to go back and forward like a web browser). Other views that can show entities of the same type will refresh to display information pertinent to that entity.

Most trees support drag and drop - the effect of which depends on the type of information shown by the tree.

Annotations views

Classes, properties, individuals, ontologies and even axioms can be annotated. All of the views look and act the same way.

Clicking Add, double clicking on an existing annotation or clicking its edit button opens the editor (below).

Annotation editor

Select an annotation URI from the left (or add your own on in the top section if you want).

You can annotate using:

• Constant a data value (typed or untyped). If untyped, then you can specify a language.
• Individual an existing named individual from the ontology (you can even create one in the editor
• Property values an anonymous individual (one that can have properties itself, but is not visible outside the ontology - arguably they should only be visible in this editor)

Usage views

For classes, properties and individuals the usage view shows anywhere in the active ontologies that references the currently selected entity.

Usage is sorted by referencing entity (where possible) and all expressions are hyperlinked for easy navigation.

This can be particularly useful for finding out how much a particular entity is used in an ontology, or when you want to know where a class has been used as the filler of a restriction for example.

There are additional filters also available to reduce the results:

• this axioms that pertain to the current selection and are likely to be easily visible in other views. eg when p is selected, functional(p) is hidden unless the this box is checked
• disjoints the number of disjoints can be large (particularly if they are pairwise) and are often not helpful in understanding the use of a property/class so are hidden unless this box is checked
• named sub/superclasses (for classes only) this information is easily read off the class hierarchy and a large number of subclasses clutters the usage view so they are hidden unless this box is checked

Views by category

Class views

Asserted class hierarchy

The asserted hierarchy view is one of the primary navigation devices for named OWL classes.

The tree shows the hierarchy that can be obtained from subclass assertions in the ontology, but also performs some trivial inferences to allow defined classes to appear in the hierarchy.

Classes will show up multiple times in the tree if they have more than one asserted named superclass.

Primitive classes are shown with a simple circle icon. Defined classes are shown with an equivalence symbol in their icon.

Dragging and dropping classes in the hierarchy will cause subclass relations to change (the old subclass relation will be removed and a new one added).

Also see Hierarchy Views

Annotations

See Annotations views

Usage

See Usage views

Anonymous defined classes

Coming in build 105. See this page about anonymous class support

Data property views

Annotations

See Annotations views

Usage

See Usage views

Individual views

Annotations

See Annotations views

Usage

See Usage views

Misc views

Axiom annotations

Inline view for viewing/editing axiom annotations. See axiom annotations for more information.

Query

Better known as DLQuery.

Selected entity

The basis for the entities tab.

This view contains other views and follows the current selection, whether this is a class. property or individual.

The default layout for each entity type can be seen in the entities tab - you can completely change these and they will be preserved.

Manchester syntax entity rendering

Coming in build 105. Manchester syntax rendering for the currently selected entity (for easy cut and paste).

Object property views

Annotations

See Annotations views

Usage

See Usage views

Object properties

The primary object property hierarchy.

Inferred object property hierarchy

Once the reasoner has classified this view will show the computed property hierarchy.

Ontology views

Annotations

See Annotations views