DIP D2.8: Ontology Editing and Browsing tool

Prototype Fact Sheet, 01 Jan 2006

This version:

http://www.unicorn.com/dip/eclipse_plugins/v0.2/20060101/OntologyEditorFactSheet.html

Latest version:

http://www.unicorn.com/dip/eclipse_plugins/v0.2/20060101/OntologyEditorFactSheet.html

Previous version:

None

Authors:

Erel Sharf

This document is also available in non-normative PDF version.

Copyright © 2005 - 2006 DIP. All Rights Reserved. DIP liability, trademark, document use, and software licensing rules apply.

Table of contents

1. Availability and Contacts

2. Introduction: Purpose and Functionality

3. Requirements

4. Licensing

5. Installation and Usage

5.1. Installation prerequisite

5.1.1 RDBMS

5.2. Installing ‘FOR’

6. Usage Examples

7. Future Plans

Appendix

1. Availability and Contacts

Version:

0.2, 01 Jan 2006.

Download:

http://www.unicorn.com/dip/eclipse_plugins/v0.2/20060101/plugins.zip

Contact person:

Erel Sharf, erel.sharf@unicorn.com

2. Purpose and Functionality

This deliverable is a graphical user interface (GUI) for creating, maintaining and browsing WSML Ontologies.

The tool is developed as an eclipse plugin to leverage the eclipse benefits as a powerful platform.

The tool is designed with emphasis on the following core enterprise requirements:

1. Scalability – Supports browsing and editing of large-scale ontologies is one of the primary goals of the editor. This means that the tool does not hold in-memory representation of the entire ontology including its sub-elements. This scalable design which is implemented in this deliverable includes the loading of the subsets of the ontology from the repository as the user navigates the ontology graph.
2. Usability – There is an emphasis on user-friendly GUI components which provide a pleasant, intuitive experience when working with the tool’s interface.

Integration of the editing and browsing tool has focused on interfacing with the tools that are being developed by other partners in DIP. Specific integration includes:

1. Usage of wsmo4j API for importing and exporting WSML files.
2. Usage of versioning API to provide the versioning functionality layer .

3. Requirements

Nature: Java library
Interfaces (API, Web Services): Graphical User Interface.
Platform: Eclipse 3.1 and above.
Supported standards:WSMO, OMWG Versioning

Required Libraries (OMWG, SDK Cluster, WSMO-related):

• All 3d party libraries are bundled with the plugins.
• WSMO4J and WSMO API is an API and a reference implementation for building Semantic Web Services applications compliant with the Web Service Modeling Ontology ( WSMO). The version of WSMO4J used in the current versioning library is snapshot wsmo4j-20051221.jar and wsmlparser-20051209.jar - a release candidate compliant with [WSMO1.2] and [WSML0.2].
• OMWG Versioning[5]: API for versioning WSML ontologies. The API version used is from 11/12/2005.

Required Libraries (others):

• All other third-party libraries are also bundled with the plugins.

4. Licensing

• See Unicorn licensing agreement for DIP: http://www.unicorn.com/dip/license.txt

5. Installation and Usage

5.1 Installation prerequisite

Note: If you have already installed the Mapping Editor eclipse tool provided by Unicorn, the ontology editor is already installed.

5.1.1 RDBMS

Note: Iif you have already installed the ‘FOR’ repository provided by Unicorn, The MSDE RDB is already installed.

As the ontology editor uses a repository backed by an RDMS, an RDMS should be installed first. As a default free lightweight choice please download MSDE (Microsoft SQLServer Desktop Engine), available from: http://www.unicorn.com/dip/for/msde.zip

5.1.2 Eclipse SDK

Please download and install the current eclipse SDK from http://www.eclipse.org/downloads/.

In addition please download and install eclipse GEF plugins compatible with your SDK version from: http://download.eclipse.org/tools/gef/downloads/.

5.2 Installing ontology editor plugins

Download the “plugins.zip” file and extract the files to your eclipse installation directory.

The following files should appear under %ECLIPSE_INSTALLTION_DIR/eclipse/plugins:

• com.unicorn.eplugin.core_1.0.0.jar
• com.unicorn.eplugin.dip_1.0.0.jar
• com.unicorn.eplugin.gabase_1.0.0.jar

Now start eclipse.

For your convenience download eclipse SDK 3.1.1 bundled with GEF and the Unicorn plugins from:
http://www.unicorn.com/dip/eclipse_plugins/v0.2/20060101/DipEclipse_01_01_2006.zip.
Simpley extract DipEclipse_01_01_2006.zip file, and run %ECLIPSE_INSTALLTION_DIR/DipEclipse_01_01_2006/eclipse (the shortcut is recommended). Please note that the first time the repository view is opened may take a while since the system is building the repostiory configuration.