Using Styles
By Sandra Schloen, April 2021
In OCHRE, a Style is a collection of Symbologies that can be applied to visualizations like Maps, Charts, and hotspotted Images. A Style is a database item just like any other that can be created, attributed and annotated. As a collection of things, Styles are organized within the categories of Sets & specifications.
Creating a Style
Insert a New item in the usual way within a hierarchy of the Sets & specifications category. (Although we recommend that you keep Styles separate from other kinds of Sets for organizational purposes, this is not required.) From among the options provided, choose "style."
Projects are free to organize Styles however they choose. There might be different styles for different purposes: Styles for Map View, Styles for Charting, etc. There might be styles for different functions: Styles for Field Work, Styles for Publication. There might be different styles for different Users.
Symbologies
A Symbology is a named specification of symbols, colors, fonts and other formatting characteristics. A collection of Symbologies constitutes a Style. For any Style, Symbologies are organized as a tabbed list of labeled items that can be inserted, deleted and moved forward/backward (use the same set of buttons for these functions as you would for Notes).
A symbology can be applied to Properties or Periods.
Creating symbologies for Properties
On the Properties tab of a symbology, enter the properties of interest in the usual way. For example, you might want a Grid unit of excavation to be outlined in one color and a Square outlined in another. You might want Floor stratigraphic units to be displayed with different colors and patterns than Walls. You might want Elevation spot coordinates to use a different point symbol than object Find-spot coordinates. Click into the "Symbology" column of the Properties pane to activate Edit mode. The Style icon will appear (a bow-tie, shown highlighted below). This will pop up the Symbology pane where attribute settings can be applied. When finished, the symbology will be converted to a text representation that displays in the edit pane using some of the features of the symbology itself as a visual cue (e.g. background and foreground colors, text font and size, etc.).
Several special-purpose metadata options are available in the Variable column to be assigned including: ELEVATIONS, GRIDLINES, and LABELS (default). Assign a symbology to these like you would for any other property.
Symbology specification
There is a varied assortment of settings that can be specified when defining a symbology. Simply select the colors, sizes, patterns, formats, transparencies, shapes, and symbols, as desired.
Creating symbologies for Periods
Similarly, to create symbologies for Periods, begin by linking Period items on the Periods tab using the Linked Items pane in the usual way. Select a Period then click the style-icon button (the bow-tie, highlighted left) to define the symbology for that Period.
Applying Styles
Part of the rationale for managing Styles as separate database entities is that a Style is an independent item then can be applied in a variety of contexts.
... to Maps
OCHRE's Map Viewer allows a user to apply a selected symbology, based either on Properties or Periods. Here the symbology "By Phase" is selected to colorize the phases of interest which have been toggled into view on the Map.
... to Graphs
A special-purpose graph, the Harris Matrix, can be auto-generated via OCHRE's Visualization Wizard. The same symbology used for the Phase plan above in Map View is used here to colorize the Phases of the Harris Matrix.
... to Images
Images that have been linked to items via hotspots can apply a selected symbology based on the properties of the linked items. In the example below, a symbology based on the "Locus type" property colorizes loci of different types. The style-icon (bow-tie, highlighted above) lets the viewer apply an appropriate symbology.