User Interface Overview
The OWL Perpective consists of the following main panels:
- Ontology Navigator. The Ontology Navigator shows the ontology projects,
their corresponding ontologies, and the hierarchies of the current ontology.
- Individuals panel. The Individuals panel displays all instances of the most
recently selected class.
- Entity Properties panel. The Entity Properties panel is the main work area
for defining and modifying resources of the selected ontology.
In addition, the OWL Perpective is characterized by many useful user-interaction features that are described below.
Navigation
If a resource is selected in either the Ontology Navigator or the Individuals panel, it will be loaded in the Entity Properties
panel. From there you can navigate to other resources by pressing the Control (Ctrl) key
(the entity becomes highlighted in blue and gets underlined to indicate that it is a clickable hyper link)
and clicking its name.

Autocomplete
The OWL Perpective also features a useful autocomplete function. Autocomplete involves the OWL Perpective predicting a word or phrase that
you want to type without you actually typing it completely. It is available in all text boxes while in edit mode.
You can start autocomplete by clicking Ctrl+spacebar on your keyboard or by simply starting to type; autocomplete starts within a second.
In the example below, the user typed "abs" and the toolkit proposes a list of classes that contain this substring.
On the right, it also shows a tooltip with the complete URI, and also the rdfs:comment for the selected entities, in this case
"p2:abstract".
Note – Notice that autocomplete has an adaptive suggestion functionality, that is, it only shows suggestions that match
your input.

Entity Label Mode
The labels that are displayed for entities in the different fields of the user interface depend on the selected Entity Label Mode.
The "ns"-toolbar icon (cf. screen shot below) lets you choose between four different modes:
- Complete URI. Displays the complete URI of an entity (e.g., "http://www.example.org/sampleOntology#Company")
- Local Name. Displays only the local name of an entity (e.g., "Company"). This makes the ontology a lot more readable.
- QName. Displays the namespace prefix and local name of an entity (e.g., "onto:Company"). This is the recommended setting and
is especially useful when multiple ontologies are used or different namespaces are in use.
- Language. If the ontology contains labels (rdfs:label) for entities,
this option can displays the human readable labels in a specific language,
thus providing multi-language support.
Note –
Notice that only those languages are available which are specified in the Window >> Preferences >> Language Preferences dialog box.
