The Class Form

The Class form can be used to define and edit the attributes of the class  selected in the Class Relationship pane. The Class Form can be viewed in several ways:

Whenever you enter changes into the Class form, they take effect immediately. To make the changes permanent, select Save from the Project menu.

There are five separate areas in the Class form:

  1. The Class Name field allows you to name your class.
  2. The Class Role menu allows you to choose whether your class is concrete or abstract.  
  3. The Class Constraints pane allows you to create, edit, add, and delete constraints for your class. 
  4. The Class Documentation pane allows you to add simple text notes explaining your class.
  5. The Template Slots pane allows you to view the slot information for your class. 

For more information on using these areas to create and view and edit classes, use the links in the list above, click on the desired area in the graphic below, or see Creating a Class and Viewing a Class.

The Class Name Field

The Name field allows you to name your class. When a class is created, it is given a default name, such as  CLASS_00001. You can change the name of a new or existing class by highlighting the name and overwriting it. The following rules apply to class names:

A recommended convention is to make the first character of each word in a class name uppercase and the rest lowercase, and to separate words with an underscore.

The Class Role Menu

The Role menu allows you to choose the role of your class: concrete or abstract. Concrete classes may have direct instances, but do not have to; abstract classes cannot have direct instances. Protégé-2000 sets the role to Concrete by default.

Protégé-2000 does not impose any restrictions on the role of your classes. One common modeling convention is to make all leaf (bottom-level) classes concrete, and all interior (higher-level, non-leaf) classes abstract.

The Class Constraints Pane

Class constraints are defined programatically. See Constraints for more information.

The Class Documentation Pane

The Class Documentation pane allows you to enter a text description of the class, as well as any special notes. Filling in this field is optional but is recommended to aid in the maintenance of the knowledge base.

The Template Slots Pane

The Template Slots pane displays the direct and inherited slots for the selected class. Slots, which represent properties of your class, are a crucial part of your knowledge base. In the example, Editor has several slots which appear in the Template Slots pane. For a full description, see the separate Template Slots Pane topic.

Viewing Several Classes

To view the information for several classes at once, select the classes and click the View  class button to open the Class Form for each class. To highlight multiple classes, hold down the Ctrl key while clicking each class. To highlight a range of classes, click the first class, then hold down the Shift key and click the last class in the range. 

Opening a new class form does not close the previous form. This allows you to compare the attributes for two or more classes. Edits can be made directly in any open Class Form.

If you have multiple forms open, you can manage them as follows:


Next: The Template Slots Pane

Classes Table of Contents