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3.1 Object, Relationship, Role and Graph Tools

3.1.1 Buttons

Project selects the project into which new types are stored (subtypes are always stored in the same project as their supertype).

Generate/Modify creates or saves the changes made to the method definition.

Symbol opens a Symbol Editor for the object, relationship, or role type.

Info opens an Info Tool showing which currently loaded types use the current type, and which types it uses.

Help shows the online help for the functions of the method development tool.

The Property Tool has three additional buttons:

Filter allows you to choose a data type and possible widget type, and filters the types available from the Name field list dialogs according to the choice.

Data type chooses the data type for the property type you are creating. You cannot change the data type of a type with instances or in use in a custom dialog.

Widget is visible only for property types whose data type is string, and allows you to choose the widget with which the user will enter values for this property.

The Graph Tool has five additional buttons:

Types opens a Types Tool for selecting the method elements to be used in the graph type: selections here constrain list dialog contents for the tools below, and determine the toolbar contents for editors for this Graph type.

Bindings opens a Bindings Tool for defining connections between method elements.

Constraints opens a Constraints Definer for specifying constraints on how many times an instance of a certain object type may participate in roles or relationships of a certain type.

Explosions opens a Graph Explosion Definer for choosing which object, relationship and role types can explode to which other graph types.

Decompositions opens a Graph Decomposition Definer for choosing which object types can be decomposed into which other graph types.

3.1.2 Name field pop-up menu

This field has a pop-up menu from which you can Choose an existing type, or Make a Descendant of an existing type. Both menu items open a dialog allowing you to choose a type from the existing hierarchy.

3.1.3 Properties pop-up menu

Set identifier sets the currently selected property to be the identifier of the property type. The identifier is the property that is shown in all selection dialogs for instances of this type, and which is often unique among the instances of the object type. The identifier is marked by an asterisk in the property list.

The Toggle Uniqueness menu item sets whether values of this property type are unique within this object type (unless they are shared with property sharing). The Unique values field contains true (T) or false (F) according to this toggle. The default for uniqueness is false, and thus normally there can be many objects with the same value in their property fields. If this menu item is selected, then the values of this property must be unique within this property type, excepting empty values and shared properties.

The Local name... menu item opens a dialog where the local name of the selected property can be given. Usually this can be left the same as the name of the property type, as defined in the Property Tool, but if you have used very general property names to maximise possibilities for reuse and want to specialise them here, you can set a different local name.

The Property Definition menu item opens a Property Tool for the selected property. The attributes of a property type can be changed in the Property Tool, affecting all types that use that property type.

The Add Property... menu item opens a list dialog for selecting one of the existing property types, or creating a new property type (the first item in the dialog). Thus if you want to add an existing property type, just select its name from the dialog and it will be added to the properties list of this object type. If you want to define a new property type, select New Property Type from the dialog, which will open a Property Tool where the new property type can be defined. The new type will be added before the currently selected property, or as the last property if there is no selection.

The Change Property... menu item opens a property selection dialog containing all the property types which have the same data type as the selected one. Thus if you want to change an existing property type, just select it from the properties list and from this property selection dialog choose the property type with which you want to substitute it.

Move Property... opens a dialog for choosing the position of the currently selected property type in the property list.

Remove Property removes the selected property type from this object type.

Edit Dialog opens a Dialog Editor for the properties of this object type. The default dialog can thus be modified for your needs and taste with this operation. See Section 1.7 for details.

Default Dialog automatically defines a dialog for this object type. This default dialog contains a label and entry field for each property, arranged vertically in the order in which they appear in the property list.

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