Ifd:IfdContext

Attributes

 * The global unique attribute
 * The version identifier
 * The version date
 * See the IfdStatusEnum for possible values of the status.
 * - which is an array of IfdName
 * - which is an array of IfdDescription
 * - which is an array of IfdDescription
 * - flag to limit use of the context to users and owners
 * - flag to tell if the logged in user can read or write to the context

Introduction to contexts
The following figures is an attempt to explain how contexts are used to filter and structure the relationships between concepts in the IFD library. A contexts is simply a way of grouping relationships that represents a particular view of a concept. In the following example each color represents a context. The box in the middle is the same concept in each of the figures. The only thing that differs is how this concepts relates to other concepts and this differs in each of the views/contexts.

The main purpose of contexts are to enable multiple structures to co-exist within the IFD library and thus being able to create particular views of a concept by using the context as a filtering mechanism.

How contexts work


Each of the figures above represents a particular context(view) of a concept. The black lines are relationships between the concepts and it's relating and related concepts. The concept in the middle i the same in each figure. Each color represent a context(view) of the concept. A context is ultimately a grouping of these lines but to simplify the sample we have colored the concepts themselves rather than the relationships(lines). Taking a window as an example the blue concept could represent the window and its parts and properties in a specification sheet, the read is the window as described in a AECFM standard like IFC and the yellow the window as represented in a product catalogue.



In the following example user A has read access to both the Blue and Red context. User B has no access to any of the contexts. The example doesn't demonstrate write access to contexts, but a user defined as context owner will of course also have read access to the same context.