Introduction
This program has a straightforward graphical user interface. Most of the commands are standard to many applications. There is a main menu bar (supporting basic operations and the help menu). There is a toolbar that replicates useful commands. Each container has its own pop-up menu for specific commands.
This program provides a concept oriented approach for accessing text notes (or comments), and bookmarks (URLs or absolute paths). It uses a tree of concepts to hold a hierarchy of concepts and associated data. The following image displays the application's main screen with an example of a tree of concepts:
Each concept may have several notes and lists of bookmarks associated to it. The program also provides basic text editor functionality, mainly to support the operations with text notes and comments.
When the program starts for the first time, a small tree with default names is generated. The user can easily change those default names to meaningful ones.
This program includes web browser commands and an integrated web page viewer (Web browser tab). The web browser tab is the default tab.
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Tree of concepts
Concepts are managed using a tree. The following images show two examples of branches of a tree of concepts:
This tree has a pop-up menu that can be accessed using the mouse right button, and that holds all the available commands for the tree:
The availability of the commands depends on the node where the tree's selector is positioned. The roots of the tree of concepts are super concepts. Each super concept (tree root node) can hold several concepts but does not hold any other information directly. Each concept can hold several notes and lists of bookmarks. Those are leaf nodes, and the associated data can be accessed by selecting the node (or, if the option 'one click open' - see the options menu - is disabled, by using the open command on the pop-up menu).
There are also commands for quick access to relevant leaf nodes (notes and lists of bookmarks). The user can easily define (or redefine) those reference positions for a quick access to them in the future. The previously open note and list of bookmarks are automatically memorized and can also be quickly accessed. The default list of bookmarks has also an extra functionality: it is used to store a bookmark, when using Navigate|Add bookmark, if there is not any open list at the moment.
The tree also has search functionality controlled by the following dialog (that can be accessed using the 'find' option of the pop-up menu):
The option deep search, present in the find dialog box, will extend the search to the contents of notes and lists of bookmarks (and associated comments). If the contents of an associated item match the search criteria, the main search (find in tree) is paused (the dialog box will close) and a secondary search is activated (this search may be in a note, in a list of bookmarks, or even in a comment). The main search will be picked up, and its dialog box will re-open automatically, only after the secondary search dialog is closed.
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List of bookmarks
Lists of bookmarks are managed using a table. This table has a pop-up menu that can be accessed using the mouse right button, and that holds all the available commands for the table:
The table also accepts drag-and-drop operations from Web browsers or file managers. Each list of bookmarks can hold uniform resource identifiers (for Web pages or other resources) or absolute paths (to files on the local hard drive or local area network). Here are two examples of lists of bookmarks:
Each bookmark uses a table line. This table line holds a name, a resource location and a short comment. The short comment can be used to quickly classify bookmarks with user defined criteria. Bookmarks may be ordered alphabetically according to the contents of a column by clicking its top. A detailed comment can also be associated to the table line. Using double click on table line accesses the link contained in that line. Depending on the link type, it opens a web page, an application or a file in its associated application). The list also has search functionality controlled by the following dialog (that can be accessed using the 'find' option of the pop-up menu):
The option deep search, present in the find dialog box, will extend the search to the contents of comments associated to the current list. If the contents of an associated comment match the search criteria, the main search (find in list) is paused (the dialog box will close) and a secondary search is activated in that comment. The main search will be picked up, and its dialog box will re-open automatically, only after the secondary search dialog is closed.
Comments can be dissociated from bookmarks. The same comment can be associated to several, somehow related, bookmarks that will then share the same comment.
Other possible uses for lists of bookmarks
The lists of bookmarks can also be adapted to other purposes. Two possible examples are: task lists and log books. In both cases the user may wish to ignore the location and the short comment columns, or even use them to other purposes.
Using a list of bookmarks as a log book
Each line of the list would be used as a log entry title. The name field would contain the title. The title it self should be preceded by an order number to take advantage of the sorting functionality. The order number can be of any form, but it could be an advantage to use something of the form YYYYMMDD (YYYY is the year, MM is the month and DD) or any similar encoding (i.e the hour could also be useful).
The comment associated to each line of the list would be used as the log entry it self.
The other two columns of the list are not fundamental for this kind of use. But those columns can be adapted for other purposes: as classification fields for instance.
Using a list of bookmarks as a task list
Each line of the list would be used as a task title. The name field would contain the title. The title it self should be preceded by an order number to take advantage of the sorting functionality. The order number can be of any form, but it could be an advantage to use something of the form n.m (i.e 1, 1.1, 1.2, 2, 2.1, etc.) or any similar encoding.
The comment associated to each line of the list would be used to describe task details or any other task related information.
The other two columns of the list are not fundamental for this kind of use. But those columns can be adapted for other purposes: as classification fields for instance.
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Text editors
The program has a web browser and text editor region with four tabs. The leftmost tab is the web page viewer and is presented in a separated section of this tutorial. The current section will only address the three text editor tabs (the three rightmost tabs of the tab region).
As expected, each text editor tab provides a text editor. The first text editor, the notes editor, operates on notes opened form the concept tree. The following image shows the notes editor with a note opened form the tree of concepts (using double click or the 'open note' command from the tree's pop-up menu):
The second text editor, the comments editor, operates on comments opened from the list of bookmarks. The following image shows the comments editor with a comment opened form the list of bookmarks (using the 'open comment' command from the list's pop-up menu):
The third text editor, the free text editor, can open any text file of choice, from a file chooser dialog (accessible using the 'open' command of the 'File' menu on the menu bar).
The available text editor commands can be accessed from the main menu bar, using the file and edit menus. Some of the commands can also be accessed from the pop-up menu on each editor window. The text editors also accept dropped text from other text sources. The free text editor will open a file that is dragged from a file manager and dropped inside is window.
The text editors also have search functionality controlled by the following dialog (that can be accessed using the 'find' option of the pop-up menu):
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Web Browser
The web browser tab can be used to present the web page viewer, as can be seen here (the viewer area is maximized using Window|Maximize):
There is an address line that can be used to type URLs. There are several standard web browser commands available in the Navigate menu (most of these commands are also replicated in the tool bar). Selecting any of these web browser related commands would also select the web browser tab.
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Data backup
This application stores persistent data in its data folder (the location of this folder is automatically determined using operating system criteria). The mentioned data includes the tree of concepts, and all lists of bookmarks, notes, and comments (as well as the program settings). The tools-menu supports commands to backup and to restore persistent application data. The user should regularly make backups (Tools|Backup data to zip file) of the persistent application data. The backups are saved to 'My Documents' folder using the generic name *ConceptNavBackup.zip. Each backup file name begins with a time stamp of the form YYYY_MM_DD_HHh_MMm_SSs in which:
- YYYY represents the year.
- MM represents the month.
- DD represents the day.
- HH represents the hour.
- MM represents the minutes.
- SS represents the seconds.
Backup files should also be copied to a removable medium (for extra safety).
Persistent data can be restored using the restore command (Tools|Restore data from backup) and choosing an existing backup file. All current application data will be replaced by the data contained in the backup file (you might want to perform a current backup before restoring information from a previous one).
SoftwareTM
Conceptual Navigator Std
Conceptual Navigator Standard EditionTM 
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