Load and View Your First Map

Load the Map

There are three ways to load a topic map -

By file name.

By pasting the code for the topic map into a textarea box.

By selecting a pre-coded link.

We will start with the first method

In the left-hand panel of the browser, under "Load", click on the link labeled "Load Map From File".

In the text box that appears, labeled "Map File", type "theclash_data.js.html" (without the quotes). This small topic map,

located in the "maps" directory, is available in XTM format on the Internet.

Click the link labeled "2. Replace source". Wait a moment to make sure the browser finishes loading (with such a small map this will happen quickly).

Click the link labeled "3. Build Map". The topic map will be constructed and you will see the Association and Topic Builder page. If you see a strange display with no readable names in one of the select boxes, you might need to wait a little longer at step 2. Just repeat steps 2, wait a bit longer, and then do step 3 again.

You should see the "Topic Centric" view of the topic map. If not, in the left-hand panel, under "View", click on the "Topic-centric" link. Notice that the topics are listed in the blue panel. The yellow panels will show information about any topic you select.

The Topic-centric View

Topics and Occurrences

In the "Topics" list box, select Combat Rock. Notice that there is one association for this topic, and two occurrences. The occurrences are not labeled with any name, for in the original XTM topic map, topics were referenced for these occurrence types but the referenced topics were not actually declared. JTMA does not create such implied topics.

Associations

In the center panel, headed "Associations", the only association for this topic is automatically selected. In the list box below, the associated topics are shown, grouped by their roles. Under the role "Disc", click on "The Clash". Notice that two (different) occurrences appear in the Occurrences panel. These are ocurrences of the topic you just selected, "The Clash". These occurrences are URLs and can be clicked, although in this particular map they point to files on the local computer that do not exist.

Scopes

This topic map does not define any scopes. If it had, any scopes used by baseNames would be listed below the topics. You could filter the topic list by selecting a scope and pressing "Apply Filter". You can remove the filter by selecting "All Scopes" and clicking the "Apply Filter" button.

The Association-centric View

Go to the Association-centric view by clicking on its link in the left-hand navigation panel. This view works much the same as the topic-centric view except that associations are listed in the blue left-hand panel instead of topics.

There are three "Born in", one "Member of", and two "Recorded" associations. Since associations do not have names of their own, the ID is displayed. In the original topic map the associations were not given id values, so JTMA assigns them.

Now select the only "Member of" association. Notice how all the topics of that association are listed, grouped by the roles. If any of these topics had occurrences, they would be displayed in the right-hand panel when the topic were selected.

Scopes

There is one scope applied to the associations. Select the "Music" scope, then click the "Apply Filter" button. Only two associations use this scope, and they are listed. To remove the filter, select the "All Scopes" item and click "Apply Filter"

The Details Viewer

The Details Viewer is a general purpose topic map browser that opens in a separate window.