Society Viewer On-Line Help

When should I use it?
The purpose of this viewer is to provide a graphical depiction of what has been defined so far. Hence it can be useful if you want to verify that the desired agents and relationships are in place.

How do I use it?

• The main window panel will contain an icon for agent defined so far. The layout of these icons can be changed by dragging the icons, or choosing one of the layout options from the View Style list.
  
• To see or hide the inter-agent relationships click the appropriate Relational Links checkboxes, this will show relations as arrows between the agent icons.

The Toolbar Options
Collapse - collapses the icons of a selected hierarchical relationship.
Expand - expands any previously collapsed relationships.
Recompute - moves the icons according to the current layout setting.
Redraw - refreshes the screen, useful if display is corrupted.
Select/Deselect - changes the state of those nodes within a selected area.
Select All Icons - marks all icons as selected.
Hide Selected Icons - removes the currently selected icons from the display.
Show Hidden Icons - shows all previously hidden icons.

These options also have corresponding entries in the View menu.

The Layout Options
There are 4 possible arrangements for the agent icons, which can be selected from the Layout list below the video controls. The default is a horizontal arrangement, but this can be changed to one of the following:

• Vertical - this arranges the agents according to their hierarchical position, i.e. subordinates are shown underneath superiors.
• H-Coworkers - this arranges the agents so that those who are co-workers are horizontally aligned. It will have no effect if no co-worker relationships exist within the visualised society.
• H-Peers - this arranges the agents so that those who are peers are shown beside each other. It will have no effect if there are no peers within the visualised society.
• Centered - this will place the selected agent in the middle of the screen with the other agents arranged in a circle around it. If no agent has been selected the Visualiser will choose one.