Reasoning Behind Ents GUI Explorer - OpenPatternsInc/EntsDatabase GitHub Wiki

The GUI Explorer for an Ents database is non-intuitive at first.

File System Directory

When viewing a computer's file system one may have a number of columns going down to a certain file. You click one folder and it moves to the left, exposing its children to the right. As you file down these remain static and simply keep shifting. This is because generally, no two folders share any children.

Ents and Overlapping Categories

Ents allows the sharing of children between two categories, so a problem arises. Lets say you are viewing the information on an Ent; its children are displayed to the right and parents to the left. If we were to select a child and make it the new focus, we update its child list, but we do not simply "shift" everything to the left.

If the Ent of focus is in a center panel, its parents to the left and children to the right, any changes of focus will drastically alter which Ents are displayed and where. This makes it difficult to absentmindedly navigate an Ents hierarchy.

Exploring an Ents Hierarchy

One needs to be aware of what the Ent of focus is. Also, one needs to realize that its "parents" to the right are the categories it is a part of, or in another way, its properties. To the right, its children represent specific examples of the focus.

For instance, looking at humans, we may see "mammals" as a parent, as we humans are mammals. For "children" of "humans" however, we would actually groups of humans, and even individuals, real or fictional. If we now focus on a person, we now see the groups they are apart of, while the "human" element has immediately become less important.

Helping the user keep these things straight is important. It allows them to navigate it instead of becoming lost in complexity.