Modeler:Tutorial/Classification and Qualification

This lesson is mainly concerned with the classification and qualification of fact expressions. It will also cover two important parts of the main screen from CaseTalk: The Project Manager on the right and the IG repository on the left. Finally it treats several ways to look at your information grammar which is developing during the classification and qualification of the fact expressions.

Creating a project

Start CaseTalk

This window contains options providing you to quickly create, open or reopen CaseTalk projects.

Create New Project

If the Welcome Screen does not appear select New Project from the File menu.

The main window title bar shows the temporary projectname ('new project') and the project manager on the right also shows the new project and the new IG that is automatically created within the project.

You can close the welcome-tab at any time by hovering over the tab and click the close button that becomes visible.

Disable UC-wizard

The UC-wizard helps you in later stadia when searching voor Uniqueness Contraints in Fact Types, but for this part in the course it's best to disable it temporarily.

Entering the first Fact Expression

1. Click on 'New Expression' in the toolbar, or press F6.

2. Enter the fact expression: There is a student Peter Johnson.

3. Type Student in the object type / fact type field:

4. Click Qualify or press Enter.

By clicking Qualify you have assigned the fact expression There is a student Peter Johnson. to the fact type Student. At the same time a diagram preview is drawn in the right panel. The further the qualification proceeds the more complete this diagram will become. It will give you visual feedback on what you're modeling. Especially handy when a modeling on top of parts already present in the Repository.

5. Select the expression part Peter using the mouse or keyboard.

Note: If you have made an error, you can press the Back button to undo the last action(s).

6. Type firstname in the object type / fact type field.

7. Click Qualify.

This assigns the expression part 'Peter' to the object type 'firstname'.

8. Select the expression part 'Johnson'. Type 'lastname' as the object type / fact type name and click Qualify.

9. Click Next to confirm you have classified and qualified all variable expression parts in 'There is a student named Peter Johnson'. This brings you to the information 'Peter'.

10. Click Next to confirm you do not want to classify any variable expression part in 'Peter'. As a result of this action 'firstname' will become a label type.

11. Click Next to confirm you do not want to classify any variable expression part in 'Johnson'. As a result of this action 'lastname' will become a label type.

12. Click Next, then click Finish.

By clicking Finish you confirmed the classification and qualification of the fact type expression.

12. The repository on the left now shows all the qualified FT/OT/LT's so far. Clicking on an asset shows more information below.

Fact expression 2

Step 1

1. Open the Repository menu and select New Expression.

2. Enter the fact expression 'Student Peter Johnson lives in New York'.

3. Type 'City Of Residence' in the object type / fact type field, then click Qualify.

4. Select the expression part 'Student Peter Johnson' and qualify this part as 'Student':

5. Select the expression part 'New York' and qualify this part as 'City', then click Ready.

The expression part 'Student Peter Johnson' will now be activated.

6. Select the expression part 'Peter' and qualify this part as 'first name'.

You can search in the object type / fact type field by entering the first letters of the name you are looking for and pressing the arrow down key several times.

7. Select the expression part 'Johnson' and qualify this part as 'lastname'.

8. Click Ready.

Note: The expression part 'New York' is activated instead of the expression part 'Peter'. The casetool knows that both 'first name' and 'lastname' are label types (therefore cannot contain any roles).

9. Select the complete expression part 'New York' and qualify this part as 'city name', then click Ready twice.

You should now have the following diagram displayed in the window:

10. Click Ok.

You have now confirmed the classification and qualification of the fact type expression. Again the IG Viewer is updated to display the new object types / fact types. Note: The fact type () 'Student' is changed into a nominalized fact type ().

Examining regenerated fact (type) expressions

Step 2

1. Click on 'City Of Residence' in the IG Viewer.

The fact type expression: ' lives in ' will be shown in the right section of the IG Viewer. The expression codes of the object type expressions which should be substituted are displayed behind the object type / fact type name betweeen the <>. In the top of the IG Viewer you will find three tabs:

Currently the OTL tab is selected. (OTL = 'object type level'). On the object type level object type expressions are not substituted into the shown fact type expressions.

2. Activate the LTL tab. (LTL = 'label type level').

On the label type level object type expressies are substituted in the show fact type expressions. As a result the fact type expression changes into: 'Student lives in '.

3. Activate the LL tab. (LL = 'label level').

On the label level both object type expressions and labels are substituted. As a result the fact type expression now changes into the fact expression: 'Student Peter Johnson lives in New York'. The box below contains a summary of the three substitution levels:

OTL: lives in

LTL: Student lives in

LL: Student Peter Johnson lives in New York

4. Select the fact type 'Student'.

All items related to Student are shown in the bottom right panel. You can now double click these items to navigate the repository.

Looking at the IG: Fact type documentation

Step 2

1. Open the View menu and select OTFT Documentation (F8).

The OTFT Documentation window will now appear. In the window the fact type documentation for the selected fact type (in the IG Viewer) will be displayed.

2. Keep the OTFT Documentation window open and select another object type or fact type from the IG Viewer.

Note: The contents of the OTFT Documentation window is automatically updated. You may even select multiple items in the Repository. This will create multiple tabs in the documentation window.

To print the fact type documentation select Print or Print All from the popup-menu of the fact type documentation. You can also press Ctrl+C to copy this image to the clipboard for processing in other applications.

3. Close the OTFT Documentation window.

Saving a Project

1.Select the Save All button to save the project and all related files.

2.Save the information grammar as 'lesson.ig'.

Looking at the IG: The information grammar diagram

Step 2

1. Open the File menu and select New, Diagram.

The appearing window is the Diagram Designer and is titled . Note: The file has been added to the Project Manager. Diagrams are saved seperately from information grammars.

2. Select the fact type 'Student' from the IG Viewer and drag it to the Diagram Designer window.

3. Drag 'City Of Residence' and 'City' from the IG Viewer to the diagram:

During the classification and qualification of fact expression CaseTalk automatically assigns role numbers to the variable expression parts. As a result the role numbers in your diagram may differ from the role numbers in other documents containing the Apprenticeship example.

4. Complete the diagram by placing 'first name', 'lastname' and 'city name'.

You may do this by either dragging more information into the diagram or use the context menu. For using the context menu, please select 'Add Related' and navigate from there.

Looking at the IG: The repository

Step 3

1. Open the View menu and select Query Repository (or press Ctrl+Q):

In the Query Repository you will find the names of all repository tables.

2. Click the OTFT table:

A Table Viewer window appears, containing the object type / fact type table. The structure of the Repository will not be explained in this lessons. Note: you're able to query the repository using SQL.

3. Close the window.

Fact expression 3

Step 3

1. Classify and qualify the fact expression 'Apprenticeship S101 is available' as shown below. The fact expression belongs to the fact type 'Apprenticeship', this name is shown in the upper right corner of the window:

Fact expression 4

Step 4

1. Classify and qualify the fact expression 'Apprenticeship S101 takes place in New York' until you have reached the point shown below:

The expression part 'New York' has been activated. In the lower section of the window object type expression O2 has been displayed. CaseTalk suggests to classify and qualify object expression 'New York' as O2.

2. Click Match. Object expression 'New York' will be classified and qualifed automatically.

Fact expression 5, 6 and 7

Step 5

1. Classify and qualify the fact expresion 'Apprenticeship S101 concerns the development of a magazine information system'. Object expression 'Apprenticeship S101' can be classified and qualified automatically as O3: 'Apprenticeship ':

Note: This window has the preview sized to hide itself. You can do this by dragging the edge between the expression and the preview panel to the right until it snaps out of sight. You can resize it back at any time.

2. Classify and qualify the fact expression 'Student Peter Johnson has as preference no. 1 apprenticeship S101':

3. Classify and qualify the fact expression 'To student Peter Johnson apprenticeship S101 is assigned':

4. Save the changes in the project (Open the File menu and select Save All). Save the as 'lesson.igd'.

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