Welcome to the help system. Below you will find a picture of the user interface. The left hand side (LHS) represents a topological tree, where the problem domain will be entered by the "expert". Adding to this tree is as simple as highlighting the proper node with a left mouse click, then clicking the right mouse button to exercise one on the options in the pop-up menu.

Figure 1 - The Designer User Interface

You will see as default, when the Designer is first executed, that we've taken the liberty to setup the skeleton for the first Specialist. This Specialist is fully customizable, as are the others that may be added to the problem domain at any given time. You will notice that when nodes are added that have, by default, relationships to other nodes, the tool will attempt to place all necessary nodes in place. For instance, the addition of an "If-then-else" task will result in the addition of three new child nodes; Logical Operation, If Task and Then Task. Figure 1 shows the result of adding such a task.

What follows this paragraph is a pictorial representation of the User Interface with portions of the tree expanded. Separate help documents can be selected for those nodes in the tree associated with input. When nodes are selected that require user input, the right hand side of the frame will show a "form". These forms are the only places where data can be entered. Each form will have a "hotlink" to another help page, going into further detail on how it is used.

1. Top Specialist Node Help
2. Constraint List Node Help
3. Constraint Node Help
4. Assignment Node Help
5. Plan Selector Node Help
6. Sponsor Node Help
7. Plan List Node Help
8. Logical Operation Node Help
9. Plan Node Help
10. Plan Item List Node Help
11. Task Node Help
12. Database Node Help

Marcus Smith (marcus_a_smith@hp-boise-om8.om.hp.com)

James Sangroniz (james_sangroniz@hp-boise-om8.om.hp.com)

Jim Lomas (james_lomas@hp-boise-om2.om-hp.com)

Please Note: We have seen some weird behavior between different versions of the JDK1.1. For instance, the JDK written by HP, for HPUX, exhibits some weird AWT bugs that do not appear in regular JavaSoft JDK releases. This designer has been fully tested in both NT and 95 environments. If you are having difficulty with UNIX platforms, please put a copy of the designer onto a NT or 95 machine and try again.