The Contact Map is a "Who binds whom" diagram that shows the interactions between agents, as well as providing a powerful way to navigate through cBooks and models based upon the relationships defined by the agents and rules. The contact maps illustrate the entire interaction network for all of the agents, as defined by the rules that accompany them. There are three types of contact map: syntactic, model, and navigational.

Syntactic Contact Map

The syntactic contact maps are essentially "neighborhood views" of the interaction network for the current agent or rule, showing all of the interactions defined in the current cBook that are one degree separated from it. The contact map is automatically generated on the rule page when the user click on the Contact Map tab, and on the agent page. On the contact map, the sites of each agent can be shown or hidden using the "Show Sites" or "Hide Sites" button. The two different colored sites indicate whether the site has a state (red) or not (black). Selecting any agent on the contact map will give the user a magnified view of that agent, displaying all of its sites and their specific interactions with the other agents. Furthermore, a list of rules is shown for any two agents by clicking on the bond between them. Hovering over any rule in this list will show the name and kappa string of that specific rule. The user can select any rule and be redirected to its corresponding rule page.

As models become larger, the contact maps can get incredibly dense and unreadable in the browser. The user can zoom in (+) and out (-), or choose to view the map full screen using the "Full Screen" button on the small control panel at the upper right of the panel. Also, the user can search for a particular agent by name using the Search at the bottom right corner of the map. The syntactic contact maps along with the navigational map are not editable, but the model contact map is.

Model Contact Map

The model contact map can only be generated after the user adds rules and initial conditions to the model because this contact map only shows agents in initial conditions and only shows relationships that are triggerable. The user can edit this contact map by clicking on "Edit". Once in edit mode, the user can choose between two modes - Pan or Selection Mode. Pan Mode allows the user to pan or move the entire contact map around. In addition, the user can select agents and move them individually. The Selection Mode, on the other hand, allows the user to select more than one agent and move them together. The user can easily switch between the two modes by using the Command/Control key. The user can save their changes by clicking "Save" or cancel out by using the "Cancel" button.

Navigational Contact Map

The navigational contact map is located on the status bar at the bottom of the browser and can only be viewed at book level, meaning users can only access it when they are in a cBook. The user can view the contact map by clicking on Contact Map on the status bar. It is the syntactic contact map of the entire cBook. The user can select an agent to redirect to that agent page. In addition, clicking on an edge between the agents will give the user a list of their interacting rules so the user can navigate to the rules easily. Similar to the Pan Mode of the model contact map, the user can move the map around the window.