Context Panel

Tabs in the Context panel provide supplementary information to what you might be examining in the other displays. The Graph Context tab augments the graph windows, and the Project Metrics tab summarizes the various List Indexes as well as providing an overview of the scope of the full project.

From this usage standpoint, the Mapper tab might also be grouped with the Context panel tabs. However, because of its form factor, Mapper is placed in the Query panel along the bottom of the main window.

Graph Context

The Graph Context tab works with Graph windows, providing additional perspective about the symbols currently displayed in a graph. While the graph itself focuses on the relationships between the symbols, Graph Context indicates where those symbols are located in project hierarchy. This hierarchy could be physical (directory > file > symbol) or logicial (namespace > class > symbol). Seeing the hierarchy enables you to understand what portions of your source code are involved in providing whatever you're studying in the graph window - perhaps a particular control flow or class hierarchy or even a file #include hierarchy.

The hierarchy controls and representation work the same as in the List panel, and you can read more about them in that portion of the user guide. Additionally, in Graph Context, you can use the hierarchy symbols to highlight and even control what appears in the graph. You can right click on a directory to quickly identify which symbols in the graph are located in that part of the file system; if you want, you can then isolate or hide those symbols.

Project Metrics

The Project Metrics provides perspective on the overall scope of the source code that has been loaded in to create the current project.

As such, the metrics provided here differ from the software metrics provided elsewhere for detailed analysis, tracking of code complexity, and identification of specific areas requiring redesign, extra testing, etc. The Project Metrics simply indicate the overall size of the project, and provide the very first insight into the makeup of the software you are examining. The Project Metrics can also serve as a check that all the appropriate code associated with your software system has actually be loaded into the project.