RE: Java GUI for OpenBiomind
Bhavesh Sanghvi
I have started looking into the commands. I have some initial questions:
1. Commands like task.EnhanceDataset and task.DataTransformer
generate output file(s). What behavior do we want the UI to have? There can
be multiple options:
(a) The GUI first lets user set various options. Once that
is done, it calls the existing APIs to create the output files. If needed,
it either opens the files in the GUI or provides a link to open it or
something else that is needed. [This will be most efficient, since file
would be generated in almost the same time as it would be taken by CLI, and
the GUI will post-process the file.]
(b) The GUI first lets user set various options. Once that
is done, it calls the existing APIs to capture the output. The output would
be displayed in the GUI (text or table), and the user will have option to
save the file (for tables, in the existing tab format) or export it (to CSV,
and if possible to XML). [This will be less efficient (since if we capture
the data and set it in the UI model too, then that will take processing
time), however, possibly more user friendly. There may be some problem in
commands like DatasetTransformer that can actually generate multiple files.
In such case, we cannot open multiple files together, but we may show a list
of files and the user may be given an option to open them individually.]
For either case, I plan to follow MVC and moreover, I plan to write adapters
that process the model to generate the desired output. However, since I did
not find direct API that can take the whole command as an input (I mean
straight what the user types in, however, need not be text; may be object)
and returns a list of output streams (data, may be object); I am little
worried about the coupling of the GUI with the existing APIs.
--
Best,
Bhavesh, who is thinking about coupling and cohesion now
-----Original Message-----
From: openc...@googlegroups.com [mailto:openc...@googlegroups.com] On
Behalf Of Lúcio de Souza Coelho
Sent: Monday, May 12, 2008 12:41 PM
To: openc...@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: Java GUI for OpenBiomind
Hi Bhavesh! Welcome to your OpenBiomind activities!
It is nice that you have already downloaded the code to study it. I
would also suggest downloading the OpenBiomind tutorial. It is not
complete yet but it covers most of the OpenBiomind commands, and I
think that following the tutorial steps and running the examples will
give you a good idea of the "mechanics" (in the lack of a better
world) of the OpenBiomind pipeline of commands. That may well serve as
basis for you to design an interface.
My original (and very simplified) idea was to roughly have one screen
for each command, with fields, buttons and other GUI widgets for
setting up parameters, input data, etc. Those screens could form a
wizard-like sequence following the graph of possible
inter-relationships of OpenBiomind commands with the input of one
feeding the output of other. Anyway, I'll wait for you to get a
feeling of how the system currently works in CLI, and if you have any
new ideas for the GUI structure I'll be ready to hear them.
On Mon, May 12, 2008 at 11:25 AM, Bhavesh Sanghvi
<bsan...@cs.iastate.edu> wrote:
>
>
>
>
> Hi Murilo,
>
>
>
> I have downloaded the source code
> (http://code.google.com/p/openbiomind/source/checkout) and am going to
look
> into the files over coming few days. I will wait for e-mail from Lucio
> Coelho about the details.
>
> I too think that this will be quite good fun.
>
>
>
> I had one question though. There are three different mailing lists, viz.
> opencog, openbiomind, and opencog-soc. Few times, it would be clear which
> one to use. However, few times it won't be clear. So I was wondering, if
> everyone who wants to know about this project is member of both
openbiomind
> and opencog-soc or not? Moreover, since opencog is the largest list, is it
> fine to use that more often?
>
>
>
> --
>
> Bhavesh, waiting for the fun to begin :)
>
>
>
>
> From: openc...@googlegroups.com [mailto:openc...@googlegroups.com]
On
> Behalf Of Murilo Saraiva de Queiroz
> Sent: Monday, May 12, 2008 6:54 AM
> To: openc...@googlegroups.com; Bhavesh Sanghvi; Lúcio de Souza Coelho
> Subject: Re: Java GUI for OpenBiomind
>
>
>
>
>
> Hello Bhavesh,
>
> It's nice to hear from you. Soon (probably today) Lucio Coelho
(openbiomind
> main developer) will send you some initial steps - you'll have to install
> the system, read a little bit about the analysis the software performs,
etc.
>
> I think this is going to be quite fun.
>
> Best,
>
> Murilo Q.
>
>
> On Mon, May 12, 2008 at 4:06 AM, Bhavesh Sanghvi <bsan...@cs.iastate.edu>
> wrote:
>
>
>
> Hello,
>
>
>
> I will be working on Java GUI for OpenBiomind. Please let me know if there
> are some specific things that I need to start with. For instance, I have
> create the homepage for my project at
> http://opencog.org/wiki/Java_GUI_for_OpenBiomind.
>
>
>
> --
>
> Thanks & regards,
>
> Bhavesh Sanghvi
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> --
> Murilo Saraiva de Queiroz, MSc.
> Senior Software Engineer
> http://www.vettalabs.com
>
>
>
> >
>
Murilo Saraiva de Queiroz
Depending on the output type we may want to create specific viewers in the GUI for them, but there's a lot of stuff which are just huge plain tables. Some other tasks may produce HTML, and we could render it directly in the GUI (e.g. clustering output).
We can also implement custom command-line switches to be used by the GUI; maybe a simple standard input parser which would accept commands and return information about the generated files and progress monitoring, in an easy to process format. This would make integration easier without compromising encapsulation.