The GUI of NARS consists of several windows. In the following, they are described one by one.
Main Window
This window contains a menu bar, a text area, a clock field, and four command buttons.
The following menu items are available in the current version of NARS:
- File/Load Experience: use an existing file as the system's input experience.
- File/Save Experience: open/close a file to store the system's input/output experience.
- File/Record Inference: open/close a file to store the system's inference steps.
- Memory/Initialize: vacate the memory.
- View/Concepts: open a Bag Window to display all concepts.
- View/Task Buffer: open a Bag Window to display the new tasks to be processed.
- View/Inference Log: show the Inference Log Window.
- View/Concept Content: show the Term Window.
- View/Input Window: show the Input Window.
- Parameter/Task Forgetting Rate: control how fast the priority values of tasks decay, in a Parameter Window.
- Parameter/Belief Forgetting Rate: control how fast the priority values of beliefs decay, in a Parameter Window.
- Parameter/Concept Forgetting Rate: control how fast the priority values of concepts decay, in a Parameter Window.
- Parameter/Report Silence Level: indicate the resource-budget threshold for derived tasks to be reported to the user, in a Parameter Window.
- Help/Related Information: display pointers to NARS related information in a Message Window.
- Help/About NARS: display version and date of NARS in a Message Window.
The text area displays the conversation between the user and the system.
- Lines preceded by "IN:" are input provided by the user.
- Lines preceded by "OUT:" are output provided by the system.
- Lines consist of single integers record the number of inference steps between input/output events.
The Clock field is a counter of inference steps after the last input/output event.
The command buttons correspond to basic operations:
- "Run": start the inference engine.
- "Walk": let the inference engine work for one cycle.
- "Stop": stop the inference engine.
- "Exit": exit NARS.
Input Window
This window contains a text area and four command buttons.
The text area allows the user to type or paste input lines, each of which may be
- an input task,
- a number indicating the inference steps between input tasks,
- a line starting with '*' that resets the memory.
The command buttons correspond to basic operations:
- "OK": feed the current lines into the system,
- "Hold": stop feeding the lines,
- "Clear": clear the text field,
- "Hide": hide the window.
Inference Log Window
This window contains a text area and three command buttons.
The text area displays information in each inference step, including:
- a step serial number,
- the concept selected in the step,
- the task link selected in the step, if any,
- the term link selected in the step, if any,
- the belief selected in the step, if any,
- the new task(s) derived in the step, if any.
The command buttons correspond to basic operations:
- "Play": display the information,
- "Stop": stop displaying,
- "Hide": hide the window.
Bag Window
This window contains a text area, a slider, and three command buttons.
The text area displays the items in the bag, according to their priority levels.
The slider indicates and adjusts the priority threshold for items to be displayed.
The command buttons carry out the following operations:
- "Play": display the information,
- "Stop": stop displaying,
- "Close": close the window.
Term Window
This window contains a text field and two command buttons.
The text field accepts the name of an existing concept.
The command buttons carry out the following operations:
- "Show": for the given concept, open three windows to show (1) its direct tasks, (2) its task links, and (3) its term links, respectively;
- "Hide": hide the window.
Parameter Window
This window contains a slider and three command buttons.
The slider indicates and adjusts the current parameter value.
The command buttons carry out the following operations:
- "Undo": reset the parameter to its previously saved value,
- "Default": reset the parameter to its default value,
- "Hide": save the current value and hide the window.
Message Window
This window contains a text area and a bottom.
The text area displays a message to the user.
The "OK" button closes the window.
Color Usage
The following color convention is used in the GUI:
Window color:
- blue for the main window,
- purple for a window that has only one instance in the system,
- green for a window that may have more than one instance in the system.
Text background color:
- white means can be edited,
- light-cyan means display only.