Node Contents and Properties

Node Contents

There are two ways to access the node contents panel:

1. Using The Node Right-Click Menu, and selecting the 'Contents' option;

2. This second way only becomes available if you have 'switched on' the 'Detail Indicator' option on The View Menu. When this option is switched on, any node which has detail text will have an asterisk appear in the top left-hand corner of its icon. You can see an example of this in figure 2 below, where the 'web' node has an asterisk in the top left-hand corner.

Figure 1: Showing nodes with asterisks

If you click on the asterisk with your mouse, this will open that nodes Contents panel. This panel will appear lightly differently for reference, map and list node. For more information on the reference node contents panel differences see Reference Node. For more information on the Map and List node contents panel differences see Views . Figure 2 below, show the standard node contents panel:

Figure 2: Editing the Label or Detail of a node

N.B. This panel is part of the node details dialog window. For more information on the other panels please see Node Properties, Views and Tag Management.

With the node's Contents window open, you can add and edit text in both the Label field and Details pages.

More than one page of details text can be added. The total number of pages and current page being viewed are show beside the 'Details' label. Beside this is displayed the last date and time that the currently shown details page was modified.

Each page can have a specified date and time associated with it. When you create a new page the date and time of creation are displayed. You can then edit these to whichever date and time you want, (seen in figure 2, as the 'Entered .. At' fields at the top of the detail text area)'. These dates can be used to filter which details pages are exported using the HTML Outline export options, (see Export as HTML - Outline for more details).

Detail page maintenance is carried out using the toolbar that you can see in figure 2. This toolbar has the following options:

Toolbar option	Allows you to:
Insert new page	Insert a new blank page after the current page showing.
First	Go to the first details page for this node.
Previous	Go to the previous details page for this node.
Next	Got to the next details page for this node.
Last	Go to the last details page for this node.
Delete	Delete the current details page for this node. All subsequent page will be re-numbered as appropriate.
To Nodes	Convert the text of the current details page into nodes. See below for Text to Node Conversion Rules
Cut	Cut the currently selected text from this details page to the system clipboard.
Copy	Copy the currently selected text from this details page to the system clipboard.
Paste	Paste any text on the system clipboard into the current details page.

Text to Node Conversion Rules

When using the 'To Nodes' facility on the details toolbar, the following conversion rules will be used: Each paragraph starting a node type declaration will be turned into a new node. Any following paragraphs without a node type declaration will become details against the previous node. If no node type is specified on any paragraph, a 'Note' node will be created for each paragraph. The paragraph will be turned into a node of a specific type depending on the following node type declarations which must be placed at the start of the paragraph:

Node Type	Description	Text at start of paragraph
Question Node	This represents a Question or Issue for discussion.	[?], [I], [Q]
Answer Node	The represents an Answer or Position, often in response to a question or issue.	[!], [A], [P]
Map Node	This represents a map, which is a container for other nodes and links. This can be used to: - create a 'picture' of the relationships between ideas; - group questions and ideas together in meaningful clusters; - create associative links between nodes.	[M]
List Node	This represents a list, which is a container for other nodes. This can be used to create a sortable list of nodes, which will usually be a collection of nodes that don't need to be linked with each other (associative links).	[L]
Pro Node	This represents a response in favour of an answer or position.	[+]
Con Node	This represents a response against an answer or position.	[-]
Reference Node	This represents a link to some additional, external reference material, which can be in the form of a web link or Word document etc. These nodes can also be linked to images, which will then be scaled and used instead of the usual reference node icon. For further information see Reference Nodes	[R]
Note Node	This represents some non-specific, additional comment or notation, often about a node or the current view.	[N]
Decision Node	This represents a decision reached, usually from an answer or position about a question or issue.	[D]
Argument Node	This represents a general argument, usually in response to an answer or position.	[U]

Below, in see in figure 3a, you can see an example of details text with node type tagging on the paragraphs..

Figure 3a: Example of details text with node type specifications

Below, in figure 3b, you can see that three nodes where created from the text in the details page shown in figure 3a.

Figure 3b: Example of nodes created from example text in figure 3a

The second node created labelled 'About a month', has details text derived from the text in the third paragraph in figure 3a, as can be seen in figure 3c below:

Figure 3c: Example of the node created from example text in figure 3a, with details.

N.B. Reference nodes have additional facilities on their contents panel. For further information see Reference Nodes for further details.

Node Properties

A Node's properties can be viewed by using The Node Right-Click Menu and selecting the 'Properties' menu option. This will open a dialog window similar to that in figure 2, below:

N.B. This panel is part of the node details dialog window. For more information on the other panels please see Node Contents, Views and Tag Management.

Figure 4: The properties for a standard node

N.B. You can view the current views properties by using The White-Space Right-Click Menu and selecting the 'Properties' menu option.

Depending on the node type selected, the properties panel contains different elements. Figure 4, shows the standard node properties panel which display the following properties:

Property	Description
Node State	This shows if the node has been 'Read', 'Unread' or 'Modified' by you
Created By .. On	This displays the name of the person who created the node and the date it was created
Last Modified By ... On	This shows the name of the last user who modified this node and the date of the modification.
Number of Shortcuts	This is a count of the number of shortcuts which have been created from this node, (see Creating Shortcuts).
Node Id	The identification number of the node.
Media Index Date	(Not seen in figure 4). This field is only displayed when you are viewing maps created during a memetic meeting recording and would look something like: This date/time information is editable and allows users to set a specific timestamp for this node in this view, which can then be used to sink Compendium with external media such as video capture. The timestamp is set by default, to the date and time the node was added to the current view.
UDIG reference	(Not seen in figure 4). This field is only displayed if the node was originally created from a messge from the uDig application. It shows the uDig id to the map point reference that this node is related to. (For more information see ECOSENSUS).
Node has been read by	This displays a list of users who have read this node.

If the node type is a map or a list, the properties panel will resemble that in figure 3, below:

Figure 5: The properties for a view node (map/list)

You can see that, in addition to the standard properties mentioned above, there is new area on the bottom right called 'Map Contents'. In this section you are given two pieces of information. Firstly, you are shown a count of the number of nodes that this map or list contains ('Number of Nodes'). Below this, you are shown a break-down of the type of nodes that they are. Figure 5, for example, shows that this map contains 15 submaps, 2 questions nodes and an answer node, (see Node Types).

Nodes which are shortcuts to nodes, (see Creating Shortcuts), have a different lower section to their properties panel, as you can see from the example in figure 4, below:

Figure 6: The properties for a shortcut node

Here you have an additional panel on the right called 'Shortcut To Node'. In this panel are two pieces of information about the node that this shortcut was taken from, its label text and its node id number.