Semtools

This is part of a bigger issue - how to balance the user's need to have all the underlying structure hidden with the same user's need to know what is going on - like the difference between metadata and annotation. So far, we have been talking about annotating datasets as a two step process, and so the second "Save" makes some sense. Some aspects of the process need to be made clearer, though - that these are two activities, that a dataset is complete on its own, that annotation depends on attributes being complete, and that not all attributes need to be annotated.

One general comment: there are some tasks that users will balk at or will find confusing - mainly that you first define an attribute (EML) and then add very similar information in a second place (the annotation). So the more that the two activities are split apart, the better -- or conversely, link them together by completing part of the annotation along with the attribute definition.

I've been thinking that the annotation will eventually supplement or supplant the current EML attribute description page. As we wrap our minds around annotation, it seems like it could potentially eliminate some of the choices that the user needs to make in the attribute screen for EML. Units in particular are a point of overlap to be resolved. Also, by choosing Entity and Characteristics first, we can probably massively simplify the rest of the UI -- for example, if the Characteristic measured is Diameter, there's no need to display any units other than Length-derived units. Exploiting the ontologies to simplify the UI for markup would always be a good thing. There will probably be some things that remain from EML. Maybe we should talk through the Morpho attribute screen and discuss what overlaps with the oboe annotation process, and what could be eliminated.

adding a dependency for the annotations being discarded when the window closes. I'm not sure what should rely on what, but they are related issues. If we discard annotations w/o alerting someone, that's bad. we'll figure out something.

Annotation should be saved if it has changed - the application should indicate that there are unsaved changes (either/both with EML and annotation) and it should save whatever artifact needs to be saved when that action is invoked.

Original Bugzilla ID was 4724