RuleXpress Version 3.1 Information

Improved Terms Management

Managing Synonyms.

When a concept has more than one term (or signifier), we call these terms Synonyms. A synonym is a term that shares its definition with another term. Therefore they are the same concept.

The Plural Form of a Term.

RuleXpress automatically determines the plural form of a term using a few heuristics and it has an extensive list of irregular plural forms.

Semantic Replace.

When the name of the term is changed the user will be prompted with an option to propagate that change to related items (such as definitions and rule statements). During the replacement you can select a unique option - Follow Capitalization - resulting in replacement of the old term with the capitalized new term if the old term was capitalized as well (and vise versa).

Support for Management of Homonyms.

A homonym is a term in your vocabulary that is not unique and must be disambiguated by a context, called Subject in RuleXpress

Improved Expression Management

Colored Indications.

A blue underlined word phrase indicates the word phrase is a defined term in the vocabulary. A green underlined word phrase indicates that the word phrase is derived by a rule in the vocabulary.

Creating Terms.

Create a term with one click in the expression editor: select a term in an expression and right click to add the term to the vocabulary.

Defining Derived Terms.

Set a term as the derived term of a rule in the expression editor. Derived terms do not need a definition of its own.

Vocabulary Aware Properties.

All vocabulary aware properties are shown in one place.

Asserted and Inferred Concept Type.

The Asserted Concept Type list may be altered by the user. The difference between the Asserted Concept Type and the Inferred Concept Type is of course that the user may specify the Asserted Concept Types that he/she thinks are applicable to the concept. The Inferred Concept Types are derived by RuleXpress by using the existing Fact Model.

Derived By Rules.

A Concept's definition may be contained in a Rule Statement. A concept may be derived by more than one rule though.

Management of Status Rules

A Status Rule is a Rule that must be applied to a manageable Item when its Status Property has a certain value. Status Property are associated with Terms, Rules, Decision Tables and Rule Groups.

Status Rules can be used to:

New Search and Replace Capability

Global repository wide Search and Replace (non semantic) can be used within communities. The Item Kinds that can be searched are Terms, Fact Symbols, Facts, Rules, Decision Tables and Rule Groups. A search is always performed on Property Values of Item Entries.

FactXpress and RuleXpress

The embedded FactXpress (e.g. in RuleXpress) has the same look and feel as the standalone version. But since it is incorporated in the RuleXpress environment it can make use of its navigation and meta model features.

Synchronization

The RuleXpress Synchronizer is a Microsoft .NET desktop application that is built upon the RuleXpress API. It takes a proprietary RuleXpress Report XML as input and compares the contents of that file with the contents of the RuleXpress Repository. The results of that comparison lead to suggested synchronization actions that the user may accept or skip. Currently the following RuleXpress Item Kinds are supported:

• Concepts (Terms)
• Rules
• Rule Groups

A typical scenario would work as follows:

1. A RuleXpress Report is produced (and the XML version of that report is saved).
2. Another program reads the XML and creates or modifies data in its own environment. The other program
3. may also modify the XML document, store additional information or change existing information.
4. The (modified) XML document is opened by the RuleXpress Synchronizer, interpreted and processed such that the additional or modified information is propagated to the RuleXpress Repository.

This sequence may be repeated may times in order to keep the data in the two independent environments in sync.