Create, modify or delete a rulebase visualization

Create, modify or delete a rulebase visualization

Rulebase visualizations are a handy way of displaying your rulebase, or a branch of your rulebase, in a tree structure which shows how the attributes influence one another. Visualizations can be printed, and also exported to Windows Media Format. Visualizations are created in visual browser files.

What do you want to do?

Create a new visual browser file

Create a rulebase visualization

Modify a rulebase visualization

Print a rulebase visualization

Export a rulebase visualization

Delete a rulebase visualization

Create a new visual browser file

To add a new visual browser file to your project:

  1. In Oracle Policy Modeling, right-click the Visualizations folder in the Project Explorer and select Add New Visual Browser File from the pop-up menu.
  2. A new visual browser file will be added to your project. Type a name for your visual browser file, for example, "Visualizations".
  3. Save your project by selecting File | Save All from the main menu.

Create a rulebase visualization

To create a rulebase visualization:

  1. In Oracle Policy Modeling, double click the visual browser file in the Project Explorer to open it for editing.
  2. In the visual browser file pane, right-click and select New Item...
  3. In the Attribute Selector, select the attribute to add to the diagram, then click OK.



    The attribute will be added as a node to the left hand pane:



    Note that the influenced/influencing rules and rule text for that attribute are displayed in the right hand boxes.
  4. Right-click the node and select Generate Rule Structure...
  5. In the Generate Rule Structure dialog, specify whether you want influenced and/or influencing rules, and how many rule levels you want to limit the tree to.



    Click OK and the rule structure is generated:


Modify a rulebase visualization

After you have created a rulebase visualization, there are many ways in which you can modify it.

Move the nodes

When a rule structure is generated, Oracle Policy Modeling makes a best guess at the nicest way to present the tree. You may want to improve the appearance of the tree by moving the nodes around.

To do this, simply select a node and drag it to the desired location in the diagram. (The lines attached to the node move with it.)

Change the formatting of nodes

You can change the display text, text font, text color and background color of any node in your rule structure. This is useful if you want to highlight important nodes in your tree.

To format a node:

  1. Select the node, right-click and select Properties...
  2. In the Item Properties dialog box you can:

Delete nodes

To delete a node in your rule structure, select the node, right-click and select Delete Object.

Hide relationships

You can hide relationships between nodes by selecting a node, right-clicking and selecting Hide Relationships... You can then specify which relationships you want to hide using the check boxes in the Hide Item Relationships check box.

Regenerate the rule structure

You can select any node in your tree and regenerate (or generate for the first time) the rule structure for that node. Select the node, right-click and select Generate Rule Structure...

Adding labels and boxes to the diagram

You can add labels to the rulebase visualization, and boxes that sit behind the diagram. This can be useful for identifying a group of nodes.

 

To add a label:

  1. Right-click in your diagram (not on a node) and select New Label. This will add the text "Label" to your diagram.
  2. To change the text and format the label, click on the label, right-click and select Properties... You can then change the text of the label, and change the font and text color as required.

 

To add a box:

  1. Right-click in your diagram (not on a node) and select New Box.
  2. To format or add text to your box, select the box, right-click and select Properties... You can then add text (specifying the text color and font) and change the background color of the box as required.

 

Labels and boxes can be moved to new locations in the diagram by selecting them and dragging them to a new position. Both labels and boxes can be deleted by selecting them and pressing the Delete key.

Print a rulebase visualization

To print a rulebase visualization:

  1. In the visual browser file pane, click the Print button in the top left.
  2. In the Print dialog box, click OK.

Export a rulebase visualization

To export a rulebase visualization:

  1. In the visual browser file pane, click the Export button in the top left.
  2. In the Save As dialog box, specify the location to save your rulebase visualization to and provide a name for the file. Then click the Save button.

The rulebase visualization is saved in .wmf format (Windows Media Format).

When you save, the file automatically opens in Windows Picture and Fax Viewer. From here you can click the save button and save the image in a different format (BMP, JPEG, GIF, TIFF, PNG).

TIP: PNG is probably the best format to use as the other formats save the image with a black background which means the arrows in the diagrams are not visible.

Delete a rulebase visualization

To delete a rulebase visualization file:

  1. In the Project Explorer in Oracle Policy Modeling, right-click the visual browser file and select Delete.
  2. Click OK to confirm the permanent deletion.

TIP: To only remove the file from your Oracle Policy Modeling project (but not delete it from your file system as well), right-click it in Oracle Policy Modeling and select Remove from Project.