Opening a process

myRM404414

Hello.
I can't understand how the "Open Process" command works: why it asks whether saving changes when I'm simply trying to open a process and why sometimes it doesn't work (that is to say, it doesn't open anything). Unfortunately, the manual only states the obvious: what every "open" command does in every application.

jczogalla

Yes. This is an empty process. So somehow your changes were not saved or you saved an empty process by accident. There is a small chance that this happened during opening a tutorial process. I will have a look, but cannot promise that it will happen this week.

sgenzer

hi @myRM404414 - so "Open Process" is when you want to load a previously-saved process from the repository. Usually I just double-click the process instead - it does the same thing.

If you post a screenshot or other info we can troubleshoot much easier.

Scott

myRM404414

Ok, I know there are three ways to open a saved process, which are the usual ones:
- right button on mouse over the process
- Open Process from menu
- Open button already available as icon
There are two problems:
1_sometimes none of the three commands work (they don't open anything) and there is no screenshot because there is nothing to show

2_when I can make one of them work, a window with a question appears and I can't understand why I am asked to save or not changes, since I'm simply trying to open a saved process (see attached).

sgenzer

hi @myRM404414 - so for #2 that window is just confirming that you want to close whatever process you have open at the moment before opening a new saved process. It's just like Excel or Word or any other software. What's odd about that screenshot is that your process looks empty - maybe you deleted everything and then decided to open your previously-saved process? Hard to tell.

I am completely perplexed on #1. I'm not saying it's not happening to you - just perplexed. Maybe you could walk me thru step-by-step what you're doing?

Scott
 

myRM404414

Ok, I didn't considered the fact when I bring something on process area and then delete it, if I try to open a process, this causes the opening of that window. All right.

Let's say this. I expect every time I open a saved process, it opens on process area and take the place of the previous one: it is what happens with some processes, while others leave the area empty. Because of the empty area, I thought I had deleted these ones by mistake, but when I drag and drop them on process area, they appear, as "Execute process", obviously, and this mean they still exist. So I can't get why they can't be opened like the others.

sgenzer

hi @myRM404414 so "opening a process" and "dragging a process into the design canvas" are actually two distinct things in RapidMiner Studio:



vs



The first one is what we've been talking about - you open a process so you can edit/run/whatever. The second one is NOT the same. This is taking advantage of a unique feature of RapidMiner where you can run processes from within OTHER processes. In this example, I am building a new process where at some point I want it to "execute" the 01_DecisionTrree process within. Some users really like this feature as it enables them to modularize their work. Personally I don't use it a lot. IMHO it's a matter of personal preference.

Hope that helps.

Scott

myRM404414

Yes, someone already told me that those are two different things. Problem is another. I thought a process which can be dragged and dropped could necessarily also be opened. Instead for some processes it's not like this: they can be dragged and dropped (and Execute "name_of_the process" appears) but when I try to open them, nothing is opened (process area stays empty).

sgenzer

yes that's correct. I've always thought that a cool improvement would be the ability to "peer into" subprocesses and along the same lines, processes dropped into another process. It would be tricky to implement but could be an aide in this kind of situation where you just want a quick peek into what's going on.

myRM404414

Surely I couldn't explained my problem. Now I attach 4 files: two of them show how the Process 1, Sentiment Analysis, (P1), appears if I drag and drop it and also if I open it; the other two show how the Process 2, Loudspeaker, (P2), appears only if I drag and drop it and doesn't appear if I open it (the area stays empty). That's what I can't understand: why I can't open the Process 2.

jczogalla

This does indeed look strange...

@myRM40 can you maybe recreate the steps and then share your rapidminer-studio.log file? You can find it in your .RapidMiner folder in your user directory. Maybe there is something going wrong when importing the process. Can you also maybe share the process itself if it does not contain sensitive data? Is there any database operators involved?

myRM404414

You're surely right. I did lot of tests, and now I can't remember the steps. Is it possible I may saved by mistake the Process 1 as a single operator and now I see it only thru drag & drop?

jczogalla

I don't think so. All processes are created the same, so it doesn't matter if the process is empty or only one operator. What you could also try is to go to where the process is stored on the harddrive (Right click on the process and "Open in File Browser"), and open the .rmp file with a text editor. Than you could maybe share that xml with us.

myRM404414

Ok, attached. I think something is wrong, like something missed. I opened others and they look different.

jczogalla

Yes. This is an empty process. So somehow your changes were not saved or you saved an empty process by accident. There is a small chance that this happened during opening a tutorial process. I will have a look, but cannot promise that it will happen this week.

myRM404414

Yes, I could answer yes or no, and once I did; problem is when I would need a "partially". Anyway, that's ok, maybe I did too many tests and now my RM doesn't work like should.

sgenzer

hi @myRM404414 - I'm so sorry that your RM doesn't work as you would expect it to. Has something changed since we started?