Tinderbox - Bernstein_2015 - Actions and Dashboards

8/17/2019 Tinderbox - Bernstein_2015 - Actions and Dashboards

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t ions

an

as

Mark ernstein

© Copyright 2015 by Eastgate Systems, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

Tinderboxr is a trademark of Eastgate Systems, Inc. All other trademarks herein are used illustratively and are

the property of their respective owners.

The story and example expense account data used here is a work of fiction. All persons, places, and institutions

mentioned therein are imaginary, and any resemblance to actual places, institutions, or persons alive or dead, is

entirely coincidental.


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Table of ontents

1

Actions and Dashboards

2

A Look At The Data

3 Collecting Notes with Agents

4

Summarizing Agent Information With Display Expressions

5 Summarizing Agent Information With Dashboard Notes

6 Actions For Automating Routine Chores

7

Progress Bars

8 Seeing The Data

9 Treemaps

2

6

12

23

33

40

47

55

60


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1.

Actions and Dashboards

Tinderbox is the tool for notes, a unique and powerful approach to

visualizing, organizing, and sharing information about complex problems.

2

Tinderbox makes it easy to make notes, even for ambitious and complex

projects that may last for months or years and may take unexpected twists

and turns. Tinderbox can actively work with you, taking actions to help keep

your notes organized and to help you visualize and understand them.

If you d like to know more about the design of Tinderbox and why it behaves

as it does, you may enjoy The Tinderbox

Way

a book about Tinderbox that is

published by Eastgate. (order here)

You don t need to read this

There are lots of ways to use Tinderbox. The approach here is not the only or

the best way to use Tinderbox. As you use Tinderbox, you will notice many

alternate ways to do things; don t assume the method used here is the best

for you.


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3

If you re just getting started with Tinderbox, you might want to read some of

etting Started With Tinderbox

first. You ll find that tutorial in the Tinderbox

Help menu.

Actions can help reduce boring and routine chores, freeing you to

concentrate on matters that do require your full attention. They can help

avoid mistakes and oversights, such as filling in dates or copying routine

metadata. Not every Tinderbox project requires lots of actions. If you find it

easier to do something yourself, there may be no reason to have Tinderbox

do it for you.

Things hange

This tutorial was originally written for Tinderbox 6.3. New versions of

Tinderbox appear frequently, and the version you re using is probably newer.

Nearly 100 official Tinderbox versions have already been released to

customers, and updates arrive frequently.

Details of the sample document may have changed since the screen shots in

this tutorial were captured, and as a result some of the results will differ

numerically from those illustrated here.


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4

Some details discussed here may vary from the version of the program you

are using. Don t worry too much: the underlying principles and concepts still

apply. If you re stuck, feel free to ask on the Tinderbox Forum, or email

Eastgate.

The roblem

In this tutorial, we 11explore and analyze some expenses incurred during a

fictional business trip. The sample data and analytical tools can be found in a

Tinderbox document you can download from:

http:/ /www.eastgate.com/ download/ ActionsAndDashboards.dmg

In this tutorial, we explore some ways we can use Tinderbox to automate,

analyze, and visualize this rather mundane information. Realistically, you

would be unlikely to want to invest this much care in such mundane and

manageable data, but the same techniques can be applied to your own,

subtler problems.

Suspend your disbelief: If you re confronting problems that don t seem

analogous to those described here, Tinderbox might still be able to help.


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Again, ask in the Tinderbox forum, where lots of Tinderbox users welcome

such questions, or email Eastgate.

ther Resources

Other places to find information about Tinderbox include:

Tinderbox Help, a detailed manual found in the Help menu.

Getting Started With Tinderbox, a tutorial found in the Help menu.

The Tinderbox Forum, http://eastgate.com/Tinderbox/forum/, is an active and friendly

meeting place for active Tinderbox users from a wide range of fields.

aTbRef - a Tinderbox Reference - is a technical reference for Tinderbox written by

Tinderbox user Mark Anderson and available both as a web site and a Tinderbox

document at http://www.acrobatfaq.com/atbref6/.

Mark Bernstein s book he inderboxWay discusses the core ideas that underlie

Tinderbox. t is available as an eBook from Eastgate.

5


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2 A LookAt TheData

Lise Nakamura is Vice President of Design at TK Corporation. an

international technology company that creates tools to help parents keep

track of what their children are doing

1

• In an increasingly complex and

mobile world, TK s products have been wildly successful and the underlying

technology has found spinoff opportunities in fields ranging from warehouse

management to law enforcement.

6

On April 24, the weekly meeting of the Executive Planning Committee

discussed repeated delays and performance issues with the overseas supply

chain for the company s crucial new product, slated to be announced in a

mere four months. The natural person to look into these problems is Don

Frost, VP of Operations and Nakamura s supervisor. Unfortunately, Frost is

not available until April 28: he is recently divorced and his daughter is

competing in an invitational tournament in Chicago this weekend. CEO Ken

Biggs is reluctant to wait, and the committee agrees that Nakamura will

leave for the Paris office on the first available flight.

1

All the people places and institutions mentioned here are fictitious or are used fictitiously.


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Over the course of the following weeks, Nakamura visits a number of cities

across Europe and North Africa, meeting with TK personnel, contractors,

vendors, government officials, heads of charitable foundations and other

stakeholders in order to understand the causes for these problems.

The first, leftmost tab in the example Tinderbox document is simply a list of

expenses incurred during this trip.

e =- Expense Account. tbx Ed'tec

I=I xpen.. . Chara ... I~ lnfrastr .. . - Status ii] Protot... = Chara...

laBJ

xpen . . cities

~-'-~~~~-'-,.-~~___;:_~~~--

+

Expense Account

T L

Expense Account

HTML Prev iew

T L

Boston

0

Friday lf

April

+

ti O (±)

Friday,2'+pril

...

ti flight to Paris

Start Date

4/24/2015, 6:33 PM

Cl

lunch

Sent abroad without notice or advance planning

El

guidebook

during weekly Executive Planning Committee.

Purpose: troubleshoot repeated delays and

ti

power adapter

quality issues that imperil the crucial TK launch .

0

[j

maps

Authorization : Ken Biggs, oral ( Why are you

T L

Paris

still here? )

ti

Saturday, 25 April

Note to Accounting: the overnight bag I keep in

Cl

car to hotel

my trunk is meant for overnight trips to New

ti

evening dress

York or SF. It's not up to open-ended European

jaunts. This is going to cost a fortune. If you have

Cl

taxi

tears, prepare to shed them , and consider the

ti

Sunday, 26 April

ramifications of a delayed or botched product

[j

lunch

launch.

7


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This list contains three kinds of notes. Each type of note has its own

prototype and appearance:

1

City notes are containers for each major stop in Nakamura s trip. Their

titles are bold

8

2. Summary notes briefly outline each day s business, both for mandatory

record-keeping and to provide context to the Account Department when

they come to authorize reimbursement. Their titles use the

Sketchnote

font.

3. Expense notes describe one expenditure, explaining who was paid, how

the payment was made, and occasionally providing additional detail for

the benefit of the Accounting or Legal departments. Their titles use plain

font.

Prototypes

Click on the Prototypes tab to see the prototypes used in this document. In

the upper right-hand corner of the map, the adornment named

Data

Prototypes contains prototypes used to characterize these expenses:


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City

Summary

Draft Summary

Expense

The prototype defines wh t sort of note each note is. Every expense record

adopts Expense as its prototype, so it's easy to find expenses and separate

them from other notes.

Second, the prototype defines the base appearance of each note. The

distinctive font and color the Summary notes and the bold font of City notes

are inherited from the prototype; we don't need to remember to set these

9

manually, and have no worries about

accidental inconsistencies.

e ,., xpense Account.tbx Edited

~ ~ ~ ~-- =~--~~---~ ~~- -m~ .. ~.

Third, each prototype defines some key

attributes that are particularly relevant to

notes of that type.

• City simply records the Currency typically

used in that place and the StartDate of our visit to that city.

• Summary uses StartDate to record the day it summarizes.

~ ncy

§rt oate

HTML Preview


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• Each Expense records a list of information about a single expenditure.

$StartDate is the date of payment, and $City is the place where the

payment was made. $Recipient is a user

attribute where we record whom we paid.

We record the $Amount we paid, the

$Currency we used, and the equivalent of

this payment in US $Dollars

2

•

$Method

records whether the recipient was paid in

cash or credit card. Finally, $Tags holds a

set of tags that will help us (and the

----------

• HTML Preview

o Expense

Accounting Department) categorize and account for each expense. Tags

might include lodging , travel , meals (with additional tags such as

lunch and dinner ), as well as tags about client accounts or projects

associated with the expense.

Every expense needs to record this information. It does us little good, for

example, to know that we spent 46.50 on dinner in Zurich if we forget to

10

2

Later we will arrange this Tinderbox document so it automatically performs the currency conversions for us and fills out many of

these fields automatically. If we expect to have only a few expenses over a short period of time we could simply fill these out

manually; if we will be using this project daily for months or years we might eventually decide to automate some of the more tedious

or error-prone chores as we have done in this example.


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12

3

Collecting Notes with Agents

Tinderbox agents constantly scan your document, looking for notes that

match their specific criteria. When an agent finds a note that satisfies the

agent's

query

it creates an alias of that note inside the agent. The agent may

perform an

action

on the matching note. Finally, the agent may sort the

aliases it has gathered.

In this chapter, we will focus on agent queries - on the ways agents look for

notes that interest us.

To begin, open your copy of the Expense Account sample document and

select the tab labeled Examples . This container holds a number of simple

agents discussed below. As you read, feel free to add your own agents to this

container.

Collecting Expenses

The first agent in the Example is named All Expenses, and collects every

note that uses the Expense prototype. In outline view, click on All Expenses

to select it, and click on its disclosure triangle to expand it. Inside the agent,


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you will see a 1 ng list of aliases' one _.___ ._ A... ....io___,,_s ____c_o..._ Ex_,,e_n_se A,__c_ou..,t

for each expense recorded in the

4

T

entire document.

With

ll

Expenses selected, open

the Inspector by choosing

Inspector

from the Windows menu. Select the

Action Inspector, marked with a

e

icon, and choose the Query pane.

This Query is simply a logical

expression which is applied in turn

to every note; if the result is true, the

note's alias is gathered by the agent,

while if the result is false the agent

takes no further action on that note.

Agent: All Expenses

Query: $Prototype== Expense

ll Expenses

Action Rule Edict Sort

Examples: Items Found

$Text.contains{ Lincoln ); 51

$Prototype-=' Person ;

$Prototype== Expense

D

Case insens itive Priority

I

Normal

--- ---

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The unusual operator == is the comparison operator, and is true if two things are equal.

We use it here to avoid confusion with the assignment operator = , which sets the value

of an attribute.

Note that, in the right-hand corner of this pane, Tinderbox displays the

number of notes currently found by this agent.

Sorting Expenses

Next, switch to the Sort pane of the

Action Inspector. Here, we choose

how the aliases inside the agent

should be arranged. Initially, they

are sorted using the system attribute

$StartDate, in the Event category.

The expenses are arranged in

chronological order, with the first

expenses - lunch at the airport and a

Paris guidebook- at the top and the

latest expenses at the bottom.

We can easily choose different

e e Act ion Inspector: Expense Account

All Expenses

I

Query Act ion Rule Edict

Sort

By

reverse

I StartDate I case -sens itive I~

and by

_d_o_n_t _o_rt~ -- - l_c_a_e_-s_e_s_t1_ve~ _. B_

r


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15

sorting criteria. Be sure that All Expenses is still selected, and click on the

Sort By pulldown menu and select Dollars from the User category, near the

top of the menu. The list is now sorted by expense, starting with a $4.99

downloadable map. Click on the reverse

checkbox to invert the sort order;

now, the first item is our costly same-day flight from Boston to Paris.

For convenience, collapse the outline disclosure triangle of All Expenses

before continuing.

Keeping An Eye On Agents

The Agents and Rules pane of the

Tinderbox Inspector provides useful

information on what your agents are

doing from moment to moment.

The upper bar in this inspector is our

chief interest here. We can see at a

glance how many agents this

document contains, and that

Tinderbox is currently working on

the agent named meals . The blue

e e

Tinderbox Inspector: Expense Account

4

Expense Account

l

Info

Agents Rules

17 agents

meals

11 rules

days

Indicates the most recently evaluated rule and

agent. The marker reflects the agent's position

in

the document outline

S

. I t

e

Oed icts

1mpeno e


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16

marker gradually moves from left to right as Tinderbox runs agents from the

start of your document to its end, and you can judge from its progress how

much time it takes for Tinderbox to bring all your agents up to date.

ollecting Specific Expenses

We might use agents to examine some specific expense categories. For

example, the agent Meals gathers all expenses relating to meals.

Agent: Meals

Query: $Prototype==''Expense'' & $Tags.contains(''meal'')

Sort: $StartDate

To qualify for this agent, a note must be an expense nd it must have the tag

meal. The ampersand ( ) is the logical and operator; the query is true if

its left side is true and its right side is also true.

$Tags is a set attribute - a list of labels or tags, separated by semicolons.

The expression

$Tags.contains(''meal'')

is true if one of the elements in $Tags is meal .


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Tinderbox knows that if the left side of the

&

is false, the result must be false and that

there is no need for further work. Knowing this can sometimes make your agents more

efficient.

Again, view the query and sort in the inspector, and expand the agent in

outline view to see which notes it has gathered. It's always a good idea to

examine what your agents find

ollecting Major Expenses

We might require special authorization for certain expenses. The agent

Authorization Required looks for all expenses over $1000, and also for all

cash expenditures of any amount.

Agent: Authorization Required

Query: inside(/Examples/All Expenses)

&

($Dollars>1000 $Method=''cash'')

The first clause is true for all notes that are inside the agent All Expenses

inside the container Examples. In this case, we might equivalently have

written

$Prototype==''Expense''

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but if All Expenses required lots of computing work to finds its results,

inside() lets other agents take advantage of that work without having to

replicate it.

The second clause

($Dollars>1000 I $Method==''cash'')

18

is contained in parentheses because we want its result to be true if either the

cost exceeded the $1000 threshold of if the payment was made in cash. The

I

symbol is the logical or operator, and is true if either its left clause is

true or if its right-clause is true.

Weekends nly

Because a proposed cost-control initiative advocates minimizing business

travel over weekends, we might need to identify expenditures on Saturdays

and Sundays.

Agent: Weekends Only

Query: $Prototype==''Expense'' & ( $StartDate.weekday==6l$StartDate.weekday==7)

Sort: $StartDate

The .weekday facet of date attributes returns the weekday as a number,

where 1 corresponds to Monday and 7 corresponds to Sunday. We sort


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this agent's results by $StartDate for clarity, so expenses from our first

weekend abroad aren't mixed with expenses from our second weekend.

May ay

We might want to locate all expenses from a specific date.

Agent: May Day

Query: $Prototype==''Expense'' & $StartDate==date(''5/1/2015'' )

Sort: $StartDate

9

This is simple enough, but does raise a few tricky issues concerning dates.

First, the date() operator converts strings to dates. The string can be any

date that Tinderbox recognizes, including dates expressed in your

computer's local date preferences. If we were using a computer configured

with British date preferences (in System Preferences:Language and Region),

we'd write 1/5/2015 in conformance with British usage. Alternatively, we

could write May 1, 2015 in either in the US or 1 May 2015 in the UK.

Second, Tinderbox dates always include a time of day. By convention, the

equality operator

==

s true if two dates fall on the same calendar day. If

event A begins on Monday morning and event B begins on Monday


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afternoon, then

StartDate(A) == StartDate(B)

is true, even though

S a r t Da t e (A)

<

S t a r t Da t e ( B)

is also true

3.

~aking Timeline

20

Lise Nakamura's trip is long and complicated, and the Accounting

Department might find it a bit confusing. A timeline can help sort things out.

lzurich

lvienna Gothenburg Boston

laoston fnearComo Marra1


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We begin by making an agent to gather all the City notes.

Agent: All Cities

Query: $Prototype== City

Next, we '11 ocus the view to focus only on the results of this agent. Select

All

Cities

and choose

Focus View

21

from the View menu. Finally,

choose Timeline from the View

menu. We see a simple timeline of

the cities visited in the course of this

• .. Expense Ace

.

trip.

To return to the outline view, choose

Outline from the View menu and

then click on Examples in the

breadcrumb bar to expand the view

to the Examples container.

Mistakes Finding Missing Tags

Expense . rototype- All Cities haracters = n

Expense Ac.count

T l:l JJ

(±)

All Cities

l:l

Zurich

l:l

near Como

l:l

Vienna

l:l

Gothenburg

l:l

Paris

l:l

Torino

l:l

London: Watchfu/Con

l:l

Tel Aviv

l:l

Stavanger by car)

We use $Tags to assign each expenditure to one or more categories, so the

Accounting Department can handle each expense appropriately. Common


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tags include "entertainment", "transportation", "lodging", and "meals".

Meals are also tagged with "breakfast", "lunch" or "dinner" where

appropriate. Tags might indicate particular colleagues or customers whose

bill was paid, accounts that might be charged for the expense, and other

short memoranda.

In the rush of work, we might forget to tag an expense; an agent can easily

find any expenses without tags.

Agent: No Tags

Query: $Prototype==''Expense'' & $Tags==''''

Only slightly more work is required to locate expenses for meals that aren't

tagged with a particular meal.

Agent: No Meal

Query: $Prototype==''Expense'' & $Tags.contains(''meal'')

& ($Tags.contains(''breakfast'') $Tags.contains(''lunch'')

$Tags.contains(''dinner'') )

The

" "

operator is the "not" operator: if what follows it is true, it returns

false.

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4 Summarizing gent Information With

Display Expressions

The agent queries we created in the

. . ,

previous section are xpr ssions

-

All Expenses:

alues or combinations of values.

Another use for expressions is the

note's Display Expression, a formula

Tinderbox uses to determine how

each note should be labelled

4

• Each

note can have its own Display

Expression, stored in its attribute

DisplayExpression.

Subtitle Caption Hover Text

Color:

automatic

Alignment:

left

Map

Size:

l

14

Outline

14

A

V

n Bold

Display Expression

0 Strikethrough

The Title pane of the Text inspector

lets you inspect and change display

expressions. Simply type the Display

Expression in the appropriate text

$Name+ : +$Ch ildCount

II

Display Express ion Enabled

4

If a note has no $DisplayExpression, Tinderbox displays the note's $Name. If the note has a $DisplayExpression, Tinderbox

evaluates the expression and displays the result.

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24

box and press [Return].

The Display Expression is a formula, a recipe for constructing the name. Don't confuse

the expression with its result. Several notes might have the identical expression but, since

the notes are different, they would display different results.

ounting Notes

The first agent we created in the Examples container collected every Expense

in the document.

Agent: All Expenses

Query:

$Prototype==

11

Expense

11

To keep track of the total number of

expenses in the document, we could set

up this agent to display the number of

expenses it found in its title.

DisplayExpression:

$Name+

1

:

11

+$ChildCount

Sandbox

a place for experimental agents

All Expenses:

When applied to strings like $Name, the + operator joins two strings

together. Thus, Tinderbox starts with the note's $Name, appends a colon,

and then appends the number of children inside the agent.

Alternatively, we might write


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25

DisplayExpression: $ChildCount+'' Expenses''

to label the agent 55 Expenses.

Total xpense

Rather than reporting the number of expenses, we might be interested in the

cumulative total. Rather than change the agent All Expenses again, we'll

define a new agent.

Agent: Total


Display Expression: $Name+'': ''+sum(children,$Dollars)

The query simply matches all notes that the agent named All Expenses has

found; this is a convenient shortcut that lets agents work together without

duplicating work.

The display expression adds up the value of $Dollars for all the agent's

children, and appends the result to the agent's name. This will display the

total as a number.

Total: 16167

Since we know the result is expressed in our local currency, we might format

it more suitably:


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Display Expression: $Name+'': ''+sum(children,$Dollars).format(''$'')

This takes the number

sum(children,$Dollars)

and asks Tinderbox to format it

[Number].format(format-string)

The $ argument to format means format this number according to the

computer's local currency formatting. The result will look something like

this:

Total: $16,167.00

26

The currency symbol and conventions for punctuating currency are based on

the locale you choose in System Preferences: Language Region.

irst and Last Notes

Instead of knowing the total, we might want our agent to tell us about the

dates covered in its list of expenses.

Agent: Range


Sort: StartDate

Display Expression: $Name+'': ''+$StartDate(child).format(''l'')


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28


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Alternatively, we might be interested in the largest and the smallest dinner

expenses. Let's construct the display expression step by step; this is usually

the best approach to building a complex expression.

We begin very simply.

Display Expression: Name+'': ''

This displays:

Dinners:

The

min

and

max

operators require a list of values. We can create a list using

the co

11

ec

t )

function.

Display Expression: Name+'': ''+collect(children, Dollars)

This displays a list of dinner bills separated by semicolons:

Dinners: 153.36;223.65;45.36;46.44;34.56;248.83 ....

Tinderbox has gone through each of the agent's children, collected its value

of Dollars, and appended it to this list. To find the smallest bill, we pass the

list to min():

Display Expression: Name+'': ''+min(collect(children, Dollars))

This displays something like:

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Dinners: 20.8

As before, we'll format the result as currency.

Display Expression: Name+'': ''+min(collect(children, Dollars)).format('' '')

which displays:

Dinners: 20.80

Finally, we'll add a dash and then find the largest dinner bill:

Display Expression: Name+'': ''+ min(collect(children, Dollars)).format('' '')

+'' - '' + max(collect(children, Dollars)).format('' '')

Which displays something like

Dinners: 20.80 - 525.00

30


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Incrementally building and testing complex expressions lets you re.fine your

work in small and simple steps and helps identify mistakes at once.

ummaryTables

In maps, when an agent has located some notes, we

typically see those notes inside the agent.

Sometimes, it's more informative to list those notes

by name, perhaps appending some additional

columns of information we want to see. We can add

a

summ ry t ble

o any container or agent to do this.

For example, select the tab named Status and locate

the agent missing tags . This agent looks for any Expense reports that have

no tags; because every expense should have some category or explanation,

31


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we'll need to locate any unexplained expenses before submitting our report

to the Accounting Department.

•

We can inspect the agent's query by selecting

it and opening the action inspector. The agent

looks through the entire document and finds

notes that use Expense as a prototype but that

have no tags.

missing tags

••)•@M

ct ion Rule

Examp es:

$Text contains( Lincoln );

$Prototype== Person ;

Edict Sort

Items Found

1

Protot ype= Expense &$Tags==

The summary table is drawn in the agent's

title bar below the agent's name, provided

there's sufficient space. To give us room to

display the table, select the agent and then

drag the top of the title bar upward, so the

title bar fills the agent.

Z) Case insensitive Priority Normal

·--- -

Next, click on the Summary Table widget, marked

here with a blue arrow. Each column in the summary

table is listed in turn: here, we have only a single

column which lists the note's name. We could add

additional columns here if we wished. Click

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anywhere outside the Summary Table Properties popover to dismiss it.

As downloaded, the sample file has no

untagged expenses and so the summary

table is empty. Double-click the map

background to create a new note, name

it test expense , and use the note's

prototype tab to select the Prototype

Expense . After a few seconds, the

note will appear in the summary table.

[if You may choose File Update Agents

Now to ask Tinderbox to update all

agents right away.

Summary Table Propert ies

I

eading

Name

Expression

Name

G] - ll

Use Headings

Finally, delete test expense ; after a few seconds, the note will disappear

from the summary table.

[if Remember to delete the text expense, so it doesn't clutter results in subsequent

chapt ers.

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5

Summarizing Agent Information With

Dashboard Notes

Display expressions work well if we want to extract one key aspect of an

agent, provided that we remember to look at the agent. Sometimes, we might

want to display several aspects of an agent, or of several agents that might be

scattered throughout your document.

A Tinderbox

d shbo rd

s simply a collection of notes that display summary

information of interest in a single convenient place. The expense account

sample file includes a dashboard container named

Status Click on its map

view tab for an overview of the entire document.

A Dashboardote

The left-hand side of this dashboard has several notes that use the prototype

Dashboard for a distinctive appearance. The Dashboard prototype is located

in the Prototypes folder, and has the following properties:

Color: 3 (matching the background color)

BorderColor: transparent

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BorderStyle: plain

Shadow: false

SubtitleSize: 75

SubtitleColor: greens

Using the Inspector to set all these parameters for each dashboard note

could be tedious, but prototypes lets notes inherit all these characteristics in

one step, and also let you modify the appearance of all dashboard notes by

changing the prototype.

Counting Notes Subtitle

We begin with the note transactions, which counts the total number of

expenses found in the entire document. This note has a Rule:

Name: transactions

Rule: $Subtitle=$ChildCount(/Infrastructure/all expenses)

This rule asks Tinderbox to locate the child count of another note - an

agent named all expenses inside a container named Infrastructure - and

then to store the result in this note's subtitle.

s The color green in this document has been defined as #5e8663 - a neutral gray-green.

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Tinderbox constantly evaluates rules, running the rules for each note until it

reaches the end of the document and then starting over at the document's

beginning6.

transactions

55

etting The Total

In the upper left-hand corner of the dashboard, we see a

note named total cost that adds up the cost of every

expense in the document. Again, we construct a rule

which finds the total cost and stores that cost in Subtitle.

Let's consider how we might write this rule in small and

simple steps.

Name: total cost

Rule: $Subtitle=42

total cost

42

6

A second kind of rule called an Edict is run less frequently than regular rules and is useful when the result of a rule will seldom

change.


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This is very simple indeed - it takes the number 42 and stores it in

$Subtitle. Once the rule runs, this dummy value will appear in the dashboard.

(You may need to deselect the note to allow the screen to update.)

We'd like the subtitle to be formatted as currency.

Name: total cost

total cost

Rule: $Subtitle=42.format( $ )

42.00

Finally, we replace the dummy value with the real value.

We'll look inside the container named

Expense Account and total up all the

dollars expended:

Name: total cost

Rule: $Subtitle=sum(descendants(/Expense Account),$Dollars).format( $ )

tot l cost

___1,955.30

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The Places We ve Been

Each expense entry records the city where the expense was incurred. How

many cities have we visited?

First, we need a list of all the expenses. The expression

find(Prototype==''Expense'')

builds exactly this list, returning the $Path for each note that uses Expense

as its prototype. Next, we find the value of $City for each expense:

collect(find($Prototype=''Expense''), $City)

Once we have the list of cities, we remove all any duplicates:

collect(find($Prototype=''Expense''), $City).unique

and, to wrap everything up, we get the size of the remaining list

collect(find($Prototype=''Expense''), $City).unique.size

ities

14

So, our dashboard note is:

Name: cities

Rule: $Subtitle=collect(find($Prototype=''Expense''),$City).unique.size

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First and Last

What is the earliest expense associated with this trip? We already have an

agent /Infrastructure/ all expenses that locates every expense record. It

keeps the expenses sorted by date, so the earliest expense will be that agent's

first child.

StartDate(child(/Infrastructure/all expenses))

The latest date, conversely, would be

StartDate(lastChild(/Infrastructure/all expenses))

For convenience, we can store this data in the StartDate of this

dashboard note.

StartDate= StartDate(child(/Infrastructure/all expenses))

Finally, we format the date and store the result in the dashboard

note's subtitle.

Name: start

Rule: StartDate= StartDate(child(/Infrastructure/all expenses));

Subtitle= StartDate.format(

11

m/d

11

)

st rt

4 24

end

5 7

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How long have we been away? Our start date is now conveniently available

as

StartDate(/Status/start)

and our end date is simply

StartDate(/Status/end)

so we can very easily write a note that reports how long we've days

been away from the office.

3

Name: days

Rule: Subtitle=days( StartDate(/Status/start), StartDate(/Status/end))

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6 ctions For utomating Routine Chores

In the previous chapter, we used rules to manipulate and move data to some

dashboard notes. Now, we turn to actions that help keep your information

organized, consistent, and up to date.

Tinderbox provides four kinds of actions:

• Rules are actions that are applied periodically to a single note

• Edicts are like rules, but are performed less frequently

• Agent actions are applied to notes that match the agent's query

• OnAdd actions are applied when notes are added to a container or are

placed atop an adornment

Keeping Your Data Consistent

We use the Tags field, a set attribute, to annotate each expense with

information about purpose and context. In many cases, the Accounting

Department requires tags to process each expense and to apply the charge to

the appropriate account. Other tags are for our own convenience, so we can

more readily relocate various kinds of expenses.

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For example, all expenses related to transportation should be tagged with

transportation and also with the kind of transport: plane, train, rented car,

taxi, and so forth. If we're in a hurry or distracted, we might omit one of

these tags.

Click on the Infrastructure tab to view an outline of the Infrastructure

container. There you will find an agent named taxis that looks for notes

whose title contains the letters taxi or that are tagged with taxi .

Name: taxis

Query: inside(/Infrastructure/all expenses) & ($Name.contains(''taxi'')

I

$Tags.contains(''taxi''))

Action: $Tags=$Tags+''taxi;transportation''

The action makes adds the tags transportation and taxi to the tags of

any expense the agent finds. Since $Tags is a set, duplicate tags are ignored;

if taxi or transportation - or both - have already been added, the action

leaves them untouched. But if one or both tags were forgotten, this agent

automatically adds them.

urrency onversion

When we add an expense item, we write down the $Amount we paid and the

$Currency we used. In the US, the value of $Currency will be $ , in the

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UK, $Currency will be £ , in the EU,

€ .

Our company maintains

accounts in dollars, and Ms. Nakamura will want to be reimbursed in dollars;

naturally, we want to be clear and consistent in converting currency

Inside the Infrastructure container, you will find a container named

currency conversion that automates conversion of other currency into

dollars. The first agent, $ , simply copies $Amount to $Dollars since no

conversion is needed:

Name: $

Query: inside(/Infrastructure/all expenses)&$Currency=''$''

Action:$Dollars=$Amount

The next agent,

€ ,

converts euros to dollars:

Name: €

Query: inside(/Infrastructure/all expenses)&$Currency=''€''

Action:$D0llars=$Amount*$ExchangeRate(/Config/euro)

Whenever this agent finds an expense denominated in euros, it multiplies the

base amount by the value of the user attribute $ExchangeRate taken from

the note named euro in the container Config. When filing the expense

report, we simply fill in the current exchange rate in this note, and all euro-

denominated expenses will automatically be updated.

The agent £ does precisely the same thing, using /Config/£:

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Name:

f

Query: inside(/Infrastructure/all expenses)&$Currency= f

Action:$D0llars=$Amount*$ExchangeRate(/Config/f)

Similar agents convert Swiss Francs (CHF) and Israeli Shekels (ILS). We

never need to record more than one amount per transaction, and there is no

risk of an accidental mistake or inconsistency when applying conversion

rates.

Saving Steps Copying Currency

Next, let's revisit the raw expense reports.

Click the left-most tab Expense Account

and scroll to the top of the outline. Select

the note Boston and view its OnAdd

action in the Action Inspector.

Boston uses the prototype City and

inherited this action from its prototype. The

action contains four distinct steps: whenever

we add a note inside Boston,

1. The note's $City is set to the name of its parent,

which is Boston .

•

Act ion Inspector: Expense Account

L...= ---L....:l __,_ -- ~

T

Boston

Query

ExarnplE.

;iiuolor rnd .

$City=$Name(parent);

$Prototype= Expense ; $Currency

= $Currency(parent); $StartDate

= $StartDate(prevSibling)


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45


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When we create a note inside a city, Tinderbox takes several actions:

• Tinderbox guesses that the note is likely to be an Expense, and sets the

prototype accordingly.

• Tinderbox guesses that the City in which the expense was incurred

corresponds to the City in which we were staying. This might be wrong -

we might have been visiting a suburb or we might have been in transit to a

new destination - but it's a reasonable first assumption.

• The currency for the expense is set to the Currency used in that city.

Again, this might be incorrect, but it's a good first guess. We use the

conditional assignment operator

I

ere so that the assignment is ignored

if Currency already has a value - if, for example, we're moving an

expense record that we'd accidentally filed in the wrong place.

• The StartDate for this expense, if it hasn't already been set, is the same as

the StartDate for the expense immediately above it. This lets us rapidly

enter several expenses for the same date.

OnAdd actions are only performed when we create a note or add that note to

a new container; they're suggestions, not constraints. If Tinderbox guesses

that we wanted to make an Expense but we really wanted to create a new

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Summary, we simply change the prototype for the new note. Tinderbox

might guesses that we had lunch in London, since that s where we are

staying; if we were actually in Oxford, we simply change the City.

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7 Progress Bars

Inside the Expense Account container, we have three kinds of notes:

• Summaries provide narrative context for each day

• Cities mark arrivals in each new place

• Expenses record individual expenditures

It is clearly desirable to record each expense promptly, while the details are

fresh in our mind. Summaries are indispensable and mandatory, but these

always pose a problem. First, the traveller is frequently exhausted at the end

of the day, and the last thing he or she wants to do is to stay up writing a

narrative for the Accounting department. Second, the key elements from the

day s activities might not always be immediately apparent, and a few day s

perspective may help focus the summary on the most consequential matters.

Nevertheless, the summary is important and ought to be written while

matters remain fresh in our mind. One section of the Status dashboard keeps

track of summaries and draft summaries, reminding us of what has been

done and what remains to do.


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Open the Status tab and scroll to the

upper right-hand section of the map

to find the Summaries dashboard.

At a glance, we see that we have

written six summaries, one of which

is very short. We have an additional

eighteen notes that use the prototype

Draft Summary . Fifteen have yet

to be written, and two more are very

brief.

If we go to the Expense Account tab,

we might change the prototype for

the April 24 summary back to Draft

Summary. Right-click the icon to

the left of the note title and select

I

I

I

Summaries

Bummaries

I

drafts

I

6

1s I

empty

I

empty diafts

151

short

I

short drafts

1 2

ok

I

I

ok drafts

I

5

1

Draft Summary from the menu of prototypes. Return to the Status tab; we

find that we have one fewer summary and one more draft. Go back to the

Expense Account tab and change the April 24 summary back to Summary;

the Status tab will return to its previous state.

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Working With Progress ars

Before examining the details of these status-monitoring tools, it may be

helpful to explore how progress bars work.

To begin, create a note named Progress. Use the Appearance inspector to

modify its appearance as follows:

Color: 6

Accent Color: 3

Border Color: black

Border Style: plain

Border Width: narrow

Shadow: off (unchecked)

Then, use the Text inspector to add a subtitle.

Title alignment: center

Subtitle: 42

Subtitle Color: green

Subtitle Size: (adjust slide to match illustration)

Finally, open the Plot pane of the Appearance inspector

and choose bar from the Pattern menu. Enter

$Subtitle in the plot's Expression field, and ensure that

Minimum and Maximum are empty.

rogress

42

2

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If no explicit minimum or maximum are chosen for a progress bar,

Tinderbox assumes that minimum is O and the

maximum is 100. As we see above, the progress bar is

roughly 4 2

°/o

ull.

If we prefer a vertical gauge, we select

vbar rather than

bar from the Pattern menu.

rog ress

If you now change the subtitle from 42 to, say, 75 , the proportions of

the bar will be updated to reflect the new value.

Expected Progress

Next, select the note named summaries and open the Rule pane of the

Action Inspector.

Rule

$Subtitle=find(Prototype= Summary ).size

The rule makes a list of all the summary notes in the document, recording the

size of that list in the note's subtitle.

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Next, switch to the note's Plot

inspector. The plot pattern is bar

- a progress bar - and the

expression being plotted is simply

the $Subtitle just set in the note's

rule.

The bar's minimum value is 0. The

. .

maximum 1s:

1+$Subtitle(/Status/days).toNumber

We already know the length of the

trip; in the preceding chapter, we

recorded the number of days

between the first and final expense in

the note days. We might well want

a summary for both the first and

final days of the trip, so the number

of summaries we expect is one

greater than the number of days in

the trip. Finally, because $Subtitle is

e e Appearance Inspector: Expense Account

T 0.

summaries

I

Interior Border Shadow Bkgnd

Pattern

I

bar

Expression L---1 _Sub_it_e _____

__J

Minimum

Plot Color

Background

lo

Maximum I

1

+ Subti11

I • green

l O white

bar( Subtitle,0,

1

+ Subtitle(/

Status/days). toNumber)

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a string, we explicitly convert $Subtitle to a number with

toN urnbe r

to ensure

that Tinderbox understands that we want to

+

to add two numbers

together, rather than to append the two strings.

Spotting Trouble

We might create Summary (or Draft Summary) notes as placeholders,

intending to come back later and flesh them out. The note empty finds

summaries with no text:

Rule: $Subtitle=find(Prototype==''Summary'' & $WordCount==0).size

Similarly, empty drafts finds draft summaries without text.

Rule: $Subtitle=find(Prototype==''Draft Summary''

&

$WordCount==0).size

The notes short and short drafts identify summaries and drafts that are

very short - less than 100 words long.

Rule: $Subtitle=find(Prototype=''Summary''

&

$WordCount>0

&

$WordCount


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days on end. This can leads to long evenings of tedium, forgotten details, and

unpleasant memos from the Accounting Department.

The number of draft summaries is a useful indicator that

paperwork is piling up. For this trip, we might attempt a

resolution to keep: we'll try to keep the number of

unfinished drafts down to three or four.

drafts

1

a

The progress bar's t rget is specified in the Plot Inspector, and may be a

constant number (here it's 4 ) or an expression. The marker is drawn using

the note's $PlotColor, alternating with the contrasting color from the

progress bar.

olor oding

Dashboards might want to call attention to problems. In the example above,

we have too many unfinished drafts: we resolved to aim for four drafts at a

time, and we currently have 18.

We can use a rule to change the appearance of notes that require attention.

For example, we could use this three-part rule (in which we've added some

extra space a line-breaks for clarity on the page):

$MyNumber=find(Prototype= Draft Summary ).size;

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$Subtitle=$MyNumber;

if($MyNumber>4){$SubtitleColor= dark bright red } else {$SubtitleColor=;}

First, as before, we make a list of drafts, count them, and store the result in

$My Number. Next, we copy that result to the subtitle. And third, if the

result shows that we have more than four drafts, we set the subtitle color to

dark bright red; otherwise, the action

$SubtitleColor=;

tells Tinderbox to use the inherited or default $SubtitleColor.

Many visual properties of dashboard notes can be effective indicators like

this. $Color and $Color2 change the colors used by

the progress bar. $BorderColor changes the border

color and $Border changes its thickness. $Badge adds

an named image or badge to the note's upper right-

hand corner.

if($MyNumber>8){$Badge= alert } else {$Badge=;}

adds a warning symbol if far too many drafts have piled up.

drafts

18

I

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8.

Seeing The Data

Pie Charts

In Chapter Six, we used a group of

agents to manage exchange rates,

converting currency from Euros,

Pounds, and Krona to dollars. We

might find it useful to see an

overview of the fraction of our

expenses that was remitted in each

currency. A dashboard pie chart can

do this at a glance.

by currency

os

0 €

• HF

0 £

• ILS

0 MAD

D SEK

li;?As rule, prefer progress bars and histograms to pie charts. The pie chart is generally

overused and is frequently uninformative. In addition, readers are not very skilled at

judging the relative sizes of arcs and wedges, making pie charts hard to read unless the

reader already knows what the chart means to convey. Still, when you need to examine

the proportion of a few categories, pie charts can be a good solution.

To begin, we create an agent "by currency" that collects those agents we

defined in Chapter 6:

Query: inside(/Infrastructure/currency conversion)&$AgentQuery =""

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Note that agents always have an AgentQuery, while regular notes have no

use for one, so locating notes with a query is a good way to locate agents

7

•

Next, select the "By Currency agent, open

the Appearance Inspector, and select the

Plot pane. Several settings merit noting.

• The pattern is "pie", requesting a pie chart.

e e Appearance Inspector: Expense Account

'--= '--'-- ___ -'----"

4____.

I

T

I

I

O

I

by currency

Interior Border Shadow Bkgnd

Pattern pie

Express ion [sum(chi ldren(orig inal), Dol lars)

• Each child of the agent represents one

segment of the pie. In this case, each

currency agent represents one segment

Minimum

[auto Maximum .__ au_to _,

• Expression can be any attribute or

combination of attributes we might wish to

analyze. Here, for each agent, we locate

all the children of the original agent and

sum their $Dollars values, giving us the

total expenditure in each currency.

• The background of the pie chart is drawn

Plot Color e black

~ J

Background

O

2

__;;_ _____

----- 0

pie(sum(children(orlginal),

Dollars))

0 $

D t:

• CHF

Smart Adornments also have queries, but because agents never examine adornments that need not concern us here ,

57


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in Color 2', and is opaque.

The pie chart legend is drawn to the

right of the chart, if space allows.

The colors used in the pie chart are

chosen in turn from a list of colors in

the note's $PlotColorList; for this

note, the $PlotColorList is:

green;lighter green;darker

green;light green;black;white;blue

by currency

O s

0 €

• CHF

0 £

• ILS

MAD

SEK

If you change the first color from green to red, the segment for $ will change

color.

ar Graphsand Plots

We might perhaps be interested in how our expenses were distributed

throughout the trip. Are the expenses clustered at the start of the trip or the

end? We some periods especially costly?

A quick and easy way to visualize expenses over time is simply to build a

chronologically-sorted list of all the expenses, and then plot each expense.

Agent: expenses by day

e e

Appearance Inspector: Expense Account

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Query:

inside(/Infrastructure/all expenses)

Sort:

StartDate

Once again, we request a plot - this time a bar graph

- inside the a gen

t

• The Expression for the plot is very simple: we draw a

vertical bar proportional to the cost of each

reported expense.

• A few plane tickets are especially costly. We choose

a maximum value of 1000 for the graph's vertical

axis so small expenses like taxi trips remain visible.

ii -4

T

(lo

expenses by day

Interior Border Shadow

Minimum

Plot Co lor e green

Background O white

bargraph( Dollars,0, 1000)

• Often, the plot background is translucent to allow us to see notes inside

the agent or container. For clarity, we choose an opaque white

background.

We see some big expenses early in

the trip - the plane flight to Paris,

the hotel in Zurich. Costs diminish

for a time, but seem to gradually

escalate toward the end of the trip.

expenses

by day

59

It might also be helpful to see how the costs are distributed. Are there lots of


60/67

expenses for the same amount? Are there anomalous expense reports? The

agent named distribution of expenses helps us keep an eye on these questions.

Agent: distribution of expenses (log)

Query: inside(/Infrastructure/all expenses)

Sort: Dollars

Where in expenses yd y we set

the plot's expression to display

Dollars, here we use a

logarithmic scale by displaying

log( Dollars). We see a fairly

even distribution of costs, with

perhaps a somewhat fewer small

distribution of expenses log)

expenses than we might otherwise expect. This might suggest that we're

simply not reporting expenditures that are very small, or that we're simply

not making small expenditures.

60

Expense Account


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Boston Paris London: WatchfulCon

fri &y, 2tt flight to Saturday, 25 Sunday,26 April Draft: Frida

lp,b ,,ooh

I

IDraft: Saturday, 2 May

I

April

Paris

April

registration

IDraft: Sunday,3 May

I

Iunch

I

lunch dinner hotel

I,idebook

I

evening dri

OyM~C'D

~~·

drinks

power adapter

1~D~D

Tel Aviv

~Iaps

1,.,....

light: Lor

DI

nft,

,.,,,,.

5M,y

I

Dnft,

DD

ijon Ziirich

Wednesday,

Monday, Tuesday, 8

n [ m

I

May

April

Vienna

D

axi to

IDraft: Thursday, 7 May

II

pharmacy

Iinner

: Holmbrich I reakfast (suppl)

I

offee c taxi to hotel

I unch

I r otol

I,.,. '''·.

DD~

clinic

I

M~

taxi to Alliance

Against

Marrakesh

Exploitation

I

Draft: Saturday,9 11

I

May I[hotel

[[ unch

I

ear Como

Wednesd1unch

[workout clothes

I

Ouarzazate Gothenburg

0[J[J

[ J -Mm

Oraft:Wed1

breakfast

I

=

Draft: Thursday, Draft: Friday,15

1ttM ay

May

Torino

Dratt:1

ar rental

I

Draft: Thursday,30 April

[Bar Z

I

Stavanger

Draft : Saturday,16

II light

I

1

traffic fine return ren

flight to l(

I

lowers

May

~D

Boston

I lunch

I

Draft : Sunday, 17 May

II

axi

I

9

reemaps

The Treemap view is designed to display the structure of your Tinderbox

6


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document in detail by using screen space efficiently. On my Macintosh, an

outline can only display about 25 notes at a time, but the treemap can easily

display more than 100 notes while showing how they are related.

To begin, select the rightmost tab named Expense Account in the sample

document. This opens a treemap view of the Expense Account container, just

as the leftmost tab opens an outline view of that container.

Each note appears in the treemap as a rectangle. If a note has children, its

interior is divided among its children. Those children, in turn, divide their

interior space among

th ir

children. This continues until we've drawn all the

notes, or until the notes become too small to see.

The area of each note is proportional to the number of descendants that not

contains. Within the parent rectangle, notes are arranged roughly in order,

right-to-left and top-to-bottom, though Tinderbox can move notes around to

help make sure everything fits.

As in other views, click on any note to select that note. Double-click a

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container to focus the view on that container; or use the breadcrumb bar to

expand the view to the parent note's container.

Weighted reemaps

Initially, treemaps apply equal weight to

every note. We can instead tie the area of

each note to that note's properties. For

example, we might make the areas of each

note proportional to the expense it records.

In the treemap tab, note the small Info button. Click that button to display

the the treemap popover.

The treem p expression can be any

numerical expression. If a note's

result is zero or negative, that note is

omitted from the treemap;

otherwise, the note's area will be

Treemap Expression:

Color Expression:

Border Color:

Dollars

Dollars

Start:

11 1

End:

11 1

roughly proportional to the result and the sum of the results of the note's

descendants.

Expense Account

Boston London: WatchfulCon

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flight to Paris

Paris

evening dress

Oyster C registration

-I

inner

I

_[theater I

Tel Aviv

dinner

flight: London-> Tel Aviv hotel

r

Vienna

clinic

H olmbrich Security: retainer

I

I

dinner

~

---- l hote-1 --

Marrakesh

hotel

Dijon Zurich

~di=ner ~ -~ho~tel----------

Ouarzazate

dinner car rental flight

LJL

nea r Como

flowers I[ otel

I inner

Torino

traffic fine

I

eturn renta l car

Stavanger

flight

hotel

..

..

Here, the treemap expression is simply Dollars: each Expense note is

drawn with an area proportional to that expense; bus fares are very small and

costly hotels are much larger. We also use Dollars for the color expression

the least costly expenses are white and the most expensive are green.

64

Note that the daily summaries no longer appear in the treemap; because they


65/67

do not record an expense, their $Dollars attribute is zero and they are

omitted. The very-expensive last-minute flight at the start of the trip

occupies a great deal of space; the pre-flight snack and guidebook, which

were accorded equal weight in our first treemap, are now tiny slivers to the

right of the plane ticket. ·:::: ·--~·

··- -·--

-

...

olor oding

The color expression can be used to

highlight specific elements in the

treemap. For example, try this color

.

expression:

if($Tags.contains(meal)){1}else{0}

-

--

-

·

--

-

••

-·

.. -

·-_

..

-·--

-

·-

-. .··

...

-

-

·-·--

·-

-

-

--~

-

-·

.

Expenses for meals will use the End Color; other expenses will use the Start

Color.

\¥ e might want to identify transactions that use various currencies. We can

use the same approach to color transactions in currencies other than dollars:

if ($Currency ="$") {1}else{0}

Here, if $Currency is not $ the treemap uses EndColor - light green -

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while if the $Currency is $ the item uses StartColor - off-white.

Perhaps we want distinct colors for transactions in dollars, euros, and in

other currencies. We could use nested if() statements to accomplish this:

if($Currency== $ ){0}else{if($Currency== € ){0.5} else {1}}

Now, if the expense was in dollars, we use

StartColor, and if it was in euros, we use a mix

half-way between StartColor and EndColor.

Nested if() statements can quickly become

confusing. Tinderbox lookup t blescan be a handy

alternative. We begin with a list of values of

$Currency and the corresponding color value - for

example:

$:0; £:0.33; €:0.66; default:1

· -

..

Each value of interest is paired with its associated value, separated by a

colon. The special key value def au 1t matches any unspecified value. The

ColorExpression is now:

$:0; £:0.33; €:0.66; default:1 .at($Currency)

To make the result clearer, we use a slightly darker green for EndColor.

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Now, transactions denominated in dollars, euros, pounds, and in other

currencies can be identified at a

glance.

Expense Accom t

Boston Paris

~Dijon

flight to Paris evening dress

Zll r1ch

dinner

hotel

u

I

inner

5 Como

j owers j hotel

orino

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Even though lookup tables are

simpler to use than complex nested

if() statements, typing them more

than once can be unwieldy. Instead,

we can store them in a configuration

note. Just as we refer to

$ExchangeRate(/Config/£) to find

the exchange rate for sterling, we

could save the lookup table in

$MyString(/Config/treemap). Now,

our color expr ession is simply:

]L

j traffic fir Ieturn rental car

IC

London: WatchfL

Tel Aviv Ouarzazatle

Stavanger

i

I I

flight : London- >Tel hotel fligh t

=

flight

Aviv

registration

:J

car rental

Vienna

[ °~ ~'~

w~,

hotel

hotel

flight

Marrakesh

lw

[

I

$MyString(/Config/treemap ) .at($Currency)

Tinderbox - Bernstein_2015 - Actions and Dashboards

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