Once you have selected a topicmap element in the Index-View, the element gets displayed in the two renderer panels on the right.

The first panel, labeled the Tree-View displays the enviroment of the selected element in a hierachical manner.

Displaying an element as a tree

The larger panel, at the right of the TMNav-Frame shows the same element as a hypergraph.

Displaying an element as a hypergraph

Both views use icons to symbolize as what a distinct element should be understood. The icons in the examples have the following meanings:

a Topic

a Topic playing a role

a Topic defing a role

a Topic used to define the type of an element (c stands for class)

an Occurence

an instance-of relationship

For further browsing the topicmap, just select any element in the tree or in the hypergraph-view. Unlike selecting an element in the Index-View, only the Hypergraph-View will be updated to show the newly selected element. This behavior allows you to further inspect the enviroment of a selected element (displayed in the Tree-View) without loosing the context. Nevertheless, it is customizable in which views an element selection causes an update. See Settings of the RendererView for further details.

The Hypergraph-View displays the topic TM4J Project. The Tree-View keeps the topic TM4J in focus.

Learn how to set the Renderer ... proceed -> Customizing display