The Workbase uses cell colors, font colors and font styles for the tree, list and table view of the Workbase to provide additional feedback about information during a dialog and after results have been achieved.
In the list and table view of the Workbase the cell colors provide feedback on the status and the value type of requested and presented information.
First of all a value can be pending or determined. When a value is pending, it means that Quaestor has not yet been able to determine its value. This can either be because it is input, or because it can not yet be calculated due to the lack of other information.
Independent of their cell color, pending values are presented with a dash or Hyphen (see [Wikipedia]) as value:
Above you see that all the values, except for Date_prepared$ are pending. Date_prepared$ has a proposed value so it is determined.
Another example:
And an example of a pending list selection:
As mentioned, besides being pending or determined, you see different cell colors and that some of the parameter names or values are printed Bold. First we will discuss the cell colors, hereafter we will discuss the font type behaviour.
With the cell colors, Quaestor communicates about the type of a value:
Please note that the above colors are the default colors to communicate about the type of values. See the Colors tab or the Options window to change these defaults.
Besides these generic cell colors, there are three other reasons for cells to have different colors:
Note that predefined colors can only be modified by the Knowledge Engineer. If you have any comment on these colors, or parameter names, descriptions, pictures etc. please discuss these issues with your Knowledge Engineers. They will be more than willing to discuss your comments and where agreed upon and where possible make quick modifications. The red system color for modified values is determined by Quaestor.
With the font style Quaestor communicates about the necessity for providing user input.
If a parameter name is bold, Quaestor communicates that there is no other way to determine this values, in other words, you have to provide input in order to get a solution.
If a parameter name is not bold, Quaestor communicates that there are alternative ways to determine its value. In technical terms it means that the parameter has a relation it can use to determine its value.
In the example below you see that all the parameter names of all Top Goal values aren't bold and of all input values the name is bold. However, you see that Yield_N is shown as input (light blue cell color) but is not bold. The reason is that the value is determined by a relation and presented as proposed values (and used as input hereafter).
You also see that the values differ in font style. This is basically for the same reason but than the other way around. Input values are presented non bold. And Top Goal values are presented Bold.
For Taxonomy type of applications, the colors of the Entities in the tree of the Taxonomy solution provide information on the status of the required information in the Entity:
Besides colors for users, you have colors for Knowledge Engineers. When you check the dependencies of Entities in a Taxonomy:
Quaestor Interface | Workbase Children Display