The Archive Pane

The fourth, and final (for now), pane of the main tab pane is the Archive pane. On this pane we manage the database of information associated with each specific graph: the Layouts Template, the Titleset and the Dataset. The data display fields and pushbuttons provided here apply to the information type currently selected.

The upper list field displays the names of all Graph Template records in our database. The user can select any record in the list and view its details before applying it. But new records (Save template) are created from the current state of the Graph object on the Graph pane.

While an internal ID number is assigned to each new record introduced to the database, the Name value is also required to be unique. If a record is imported whose name is already in use, a number will be appended to this name to make it unique.

An even more flexible scheme, developed for the Graph2Lab where there is not a built-in template mechanism, is under development. The ability to export and import information set records separately will be added to allow the developer to create custom graph setups for clients as well as to allow end users to trade them amongst themselves. Three extensions will be used to represent exported records of three different types: Templates, Titlesets and Datasets. While these have not been registered internationally, we have checked to be certain that they are not in use by other applications. We are using .g1l for layout records, .g1t for titleset records and .g1d for dataset records. These types will be appropriately filtered by the import file dialog.