Working with model diagrams : Create ghosts
Creating ghost elements
Large diagrams can become unwieldy, due to the long distances across which influence arrows must be drawn. To work around this, it is possible to create a ghost of a node element, which has the same value at all times as the original. The ghost can be placed close to the other element(s) that the original element influences. A ghost can be recognised by its appearance (ghostly).
A single original element can be ghosted more than once, each ghost being placed closer to other elements. Influence arrows and flows can be drawn to and from ghosts as usual. These will affect all instances of the original. To create a ghost, the following procedure is used:
- Click on the ghost button on the tool bar, or select the "Ghost" item on the "Tools" menu.
- Click on the element to be ghosted. The cursor now takes on a 'cross-hair' appearance, indicating another click is needed to complete the operation.
- Click on the model diagram to place the ghost. If you click on an existing element on the model diagram, it will become the ghost. If you click in a blank area, a new symbol will be placed there.
Alternatively, you can:
- Click on the ghost button on the tool bar, or select the "Ghost" item on the "Tools" menu.
- Drag from the component to be ghosted, to the location of the new ghost.
Once a ghost is created, changes to its equation or other properties will also affect the original, and other ghosts created from the same original. Care must be taken in using ghosts as it is easy to overlook the fact that a ghost exists elsewhere and will be affected by changes made to the original which are not appropriate for the ghost. When a component is selected, all its ghosts are highlit in bright green.
There are implied influence arrows between the original element and its ghost. You can turn on the display of these influence arrows, in order to find all related ghosts for example, using the "Show detail… Ghost links" command of the View menu. Once the ghost links are displayed, they can be deleted, in which case the component at the end ceases to be a ghost, and is marked incomplete (red) unless it has an equation of its own.
It is sometimes useful to replace a component in one part of a model with the ghost of another, allowing the value of the ghosted component to be used everywhere the value of the original component was previously used. To do this, you can click on, or drag to, another component when creating a ghost. The component becomes a ghost, keeping all its connections. For this to happen it must be the same type as the component being ghosted. The original equation of the replaced component is remembered, and reappears if it ceases to be a ghost.
Note that if you delete the original element, all its ghosts will become undefined unless they previously had equations of their own. You can delete a ghost without affecting the original, unless you have added influence arrows or flows to the ghost, in which case these will no longer be used by the original.