PrF UG meta change meta sub

Changing the Metaclass of Subclasses

Protege-Frames User's Guide
Metaclasses
Understanding Metaclasses
Example: Creating and Using a Metaclass
Looking at :STANDARD- CLASS
Creating a Metaclass
Creating a Class Using a Metaclass
Changing the Metaclass of a Class
Changing the Metaclass of Subclasses
Setting the Default Metaclass
Customizing the Class or Slot Editor
Understanding Slot Metaclasses
Creating a Slot Metaclass
Changing the Slot Metaclass of a Slot
Creating a Subslot Using a Slot Metaclass
Changing the Slot Metaclass of Subslots
Setting the Default Slot Metaclass
Glossary, Editing Help

When you change the metaclass of a class, all of its subclasses will retain their previous metaclass. This ensures that you do not propagate changes when you do not want to. However, often you will want existing subclasses to have the same metaclass as their superclass. Protege-Frames provides an option to quickly change the metaclasses of all the classes subordinate to a given class. Note that you only have to do this once; by default, new classes use the metaclass of their direct superclass.

To change the metaclass of all existing subclasses of a given class:

1. In the Class Browser, find the class whose subclasses you want to change.

   

   Class Browser, "White wine" selected

2. Click the right mouse button and select "Change metaclass of subclasses". This will change all of the classes below this one to have the same metaclass as the selected class.

   

   "Change Metaclass of Subclasses..." selected

3. A dialog box will ask you for verification. Click OK to continue.

   

   verification dialog

4. The change will be made: all subordinate classes will now have the metaclass of the selected class.