Developing Own Styles

Creating styles doesn't take long and can be quite a lot of fun.

At the same time, it helps developing a better understanding of decision tree analysis in general and of Insight Tree in particular by giving the user an understanding of the various types of objects used for decision trees.

The object trees

Insight Tree offers two ways to access the style handling dialog:

  1. Menu "File - Tree properties..." and "Styles" tab.

  2. Right mouse click on a node, then select "Edit node type style..." from the contextual menu.
    The dialog will open and the node type on which you clicked is already selected.

 

You may

The inheritance system for style properties

In Insight Tree, nodes can have one of four Node states assigned:

    1.

    In taken path:

     Each path following only "TRUE" decisions
    2.

    Not in taken path:

     Each path following a "FALSE" decision
    3.

    Clone, in taken path:

     Each cloned path following only "TRUE" decisions
    4.

    Clone, not in taken path:

     Each cloned path following a "FALSE" decision

In addition, nodes and other elements of a decision tree belong to a node type, which build a hierarchical tree structure.

The inheritance system for this structure can be described with the following rules:

  1. The "All" node type in the taken path is the root type. Its settings are not inherited but can be used for all other nodes.
     

  2. The other node types inherit from the elements logically situated in the Node type tree structure above them.

    The "Decisions (single)" element for example inherits style settings from "Symbols", which in turn inherits from the "All" element.
     

  3. Node states "Not in taken path" inherit from the "In taken Path" states.
     

  4. "Clone" states inherit from the non-clone states.


Tips for better style creation

  1. A good way is to start with all settings on "Default" except - of course - the settings of the "All" element in the node state "In taken path".
     

  2. Make your settings for the "All" element in the node state "In taken path". These will be the default settings for other elements.
     

  3. Then go through the various "Node states" and "Node types" and make specific settings where you believe that the graphics should reflect differences.
     

  4. As soon as you have a good style, assign a name to it and save or export it.

© 2006 - 2008, www.visionarytools.com Daniel & Oliver Lehmann, Munich, Germany