Information engineering is a new activity within the Telematics part of the Fourth Framework Programme for R&D of the Commission of the European Union. It is a horizontal activity that is concerned with the problems of providing easier and more selective access to information and improving the usability of information. It may be considered as applications research in support of the emerging information highways, that will enable the general public, SMES and other non-professional users to access facitilites that until now have been available almost exclusively to research workers and large corporations. The programme has been developed in close consultation with European industry; over 600 organisations have either attended meetings with the Commission or sent written comments on the draft documents. The aim of the consultation has been to create a programme that would provide support to application research activities that are of direct use to European industry.
Many people are having their first experience with a distributed hypertext system by using Mosaic or some other viewer based on HTML, the HyperText Markup Language of the World Wide Web. HTML’s simplicity allows it to be created without special authoring tools or expertise, and the ubiquity of free WWW viewers like Mosaic removes one of the cost barriers. Because HTML is an application of SGML, the Standard Generalized Markup Language, it has also introduced many people to the concepts and syntax of applicationindependent markup. The explosive growth of the WWW makes it undeniable that HTML and Mosaic will serve as the reference point for much future thinking about hypertext and SGML outside of the academic and research community.
The paper describes the extension of a hypermedia class library with music as a new component type, but will focus on the development of a software wrapper object as an application programmers interface to the Csound software sound synthesis program. This wrapper provides the flexible, interactive and object oriented interface needed by a hypermedia system. Additionally, some consequences of the fundamental difference between static and time-based media will be discussed.
One of the crucial properties of documents through the ages has been their fixity. The ability to mark surfaces in relatively stable ways has made it possible for people distributed across space and time to see the same images and thereby to have access to the same meanings or communicative intent. Today, however, with the increasing use of digital technologies, it is often asserted that we are moving from the fixed world of paper documents to the fluid world of digital documents. In this paper I challenge this assertion, arguing instead that all documents, regardless of medium, are fixed and fluid. Thus, although paper documents do fix aspects of communication, they do (and must) also change; and although digital documents are easily changeable, they must also be capable of remaining fixed. I make use of this analysis in two ways: first, to examine the fixity and fluidity of hypertext; and second, to critique Bolter's argument in Writing Space concerning the movement from “fixed to fluid.”
ABSTRACTThe emergent nature of structure is a crucial, but often ignored, constraint on authoring hypertexts. VIKI is a spatial hypertext system that supports the emergent qualities of structure and the abstractions that guide its creation. We have found that a visual/spatial metaphor for hypertext allows people to express the nuances of structure, especialy ambiguous, partial, or emerging structure, more easily. VIKI supports interpretation of a collected body of materials, a task that becomes increasingly important with the availability of on-line information sources. The tool's data model includes semi-structured objects, collections that provide the basis for spatial navigation, and object composites, all of which may evolve into types. A spatial parser supports this evolution and enhances user interaction with changing, visually apparent organizations.
ABSTRACTIn recent years, there has been significant growth in the use of computer networks to support electronic delivery of information. As the volume of available information has grown, a need for powerful tools that can manage access has arisen. It has been suggested that hypertext techniques can provide such a facility.The Microcosm system is a hypertext link service developed at the University of Southampton. The system is based upon a modular architecture which allows the functionality of the system to be easily and dynamically extended. This paper describes the development of a distributed version of Microcosm based upon this modular design.The distributed system described utilises the fine granularity of the Microcosm model to support a wide range of wide possible configurations. The system also extends the document management facilities of Microcosm to allow information stored by other information services to be incorporated. The result is a system that can apply Microcosm's open linking services to a wide range of networked information.
Due to the growing complexity of modern hypertext applications, current hypertext systems require new mechanisms to support authoring and user navigation through large sets of documents connected by links. A general solution is to extent hypertext systems to cater for semantics of application domains. This requires new hypertext models providing strongly typed documents and links. Such models have been proposed and put to use in systems such as HDM and MacWeb to facilitate authoring of large hypertexts. In addition, Gram and MORE use typing and graph-based hypertext schemas for querying hyperdocuments. In this paper, we will show how query languages could be further exploited for designing sophisticated general query-based navigation mechanisms. We illustrate our examples using the Gram model and describe an implementation with the hypermedia system Multicard connected to the object-oriented database management system O2.
The architecture and some of the realized functionality of a prototype Editor's Workbench that supports the creation and maintenance of an object-oriented publisher's knowledge base is presented. The knowledge base is the repository not only for the actual publication content, but for all the information needed to manage and control the publication process. The concrete application context is an art history reference work. We discuss content acquisition and data modelling aspects of the underlying object network.
Networks are becoming increasingly available and hypertext systems with networking capabilities are currently enjoying exponential growth. The vast majority of hypertext systems were not, however, designed to cater for networking. This paper examines whether it is possible to add networking to such systems and, if so, whether it can be done without upsetting existing hyperdocuments, existing authors and existing readers. The examination is done using one specific hypertext system, UNIX Guide, but the lessons are, I hope, more general.
ABSTRACTHierarchical logical structure and hypertext links are complementary and can be combined to build more powerful document management systems. Previous work exploits this complementarity for building better document processors, browsers and editing tools, but not for building sophisticated querying mechanisms. Querying in hypertext has been a requirement since [19] and has already been elaborated in many hypertext systems, but has not yet been used for hypertext systems superimposed on an underlying hierarchical logical structure.In this paper we use the model and the SQL-like query language of [10] in order to manage structured documents with hypertext links. The model represents a structured documents with hypertext links. The model represents a structured document with typed links as a complex object, and uses paths through the document structure, as first class citizens in formulating queries. Several examples of queries illustrate, from a practical point of view, the expressive power of the language to retrieve documents, even without exact knowledge of their structure in a simple and homogeneous fashion. It must be stressed that the proposed model and language implement the equivalent HyTime Location Address Module. In fact, the language is more powerful than the corresponding HyQ query facilities. The implementation and the description throughout the paper use the SGML standard to represent the document structure and the object-oriented DBMS O2 to implement the query language and the storage module.
ABSTRACTThe Dexter Model defines the notion of atomic components and composite components, but it does not prescribe, nor it suggests, any particular structure for composite components. This paper proposes a specific type of composite component, called “collection”.A collection is a container holding several members. Collections can contain other collections (nested collections). Collections can be regarded as sets, but they can also have an inner structure. Collections can be created in several ways: manually, through queries, by operations on other collections, by exploiting links, etc.Collections introduce a navigational pattern, based on their structure, that is different from the standard node&link navigation.If active media are considered, collections allow the design and implementation of complex synchronisation strategies, difficult to obtain otherwise.The paper describes the motivations for using collections, their structure, their navigational capabilities and a number of possible authoring mechanisms. It also examines the interplay between standard navigation and collection navigation, possible synchronization strategies for collections, as well as the requirements for the definition of a runtime support (which could be used to extend the runtime layer of the Dexter Model).
We propose a new navigation paradigm based on a spatial metaphor to help users access and navigate within large sets of documents. This metaphor is implemented by a computer artifact called an Interactive Dynamic Map (IDM). An IDM plays a role similar to the role of a real map with respect to physical space. Two types of IDMs are computed from the documents: Topic IDMs represent the semantic contents of a set of documents while Document IDMs visualize a subset of documents such as those resulting from a query. IDMs can be used for navigating, browsing, and querying. They can be made active, they can be customized and they can be shared among users. The article presents the SHADOCS document retrieval system and describes the role, use and generation of IDMs in SHADOCS.
Numerous market and industry segments are becoming increasingly interested in hypermedia. For example, hypermedia is a fundamental cornerstone in electronic publishing, electronic performance support systems, and interactive entertainment. Most of the current state of the art in hypermedia is being defined by research which is conducted in universities and research institutions. Yet many of the hypermedia systems that are in use today by industry are first generation systems, often at least five years old. This begs the question: just how important is leading edge hypermedia technology to the private sector?
At GMD-IPSI we are developing CoVer, a contextual version server for hypertext applications. Another characterization of CoVer is that CoVer integrates state-oriented versioning concepts with task-oriented versioning concepts. While other version models in general support only one of these groups of concepts, we argue that the explicit composition of versions of complex hypertext networks has to be complemented by automatic version creation in the context of tasks or jobs performed while manipulating the hypertext network and vice versa. Regarding the implementation of version models, it turns out that the state-oriented implementation approach—representing every legal state of a hyperdocument explicitly—and the task-oriented implementation approach—computing versions of complex hypertext networks due to changes executed during a task or job—are interchangeable. While the separation of state- and task-oriented concepts at the conceptual level of the version model is desireable to support version creation and selection for different hypertext applications, the implementation of such a dual model can be based on a single implementation approach. This paper discusses both types of implementation with an emphasis to cope with alternative versions that are in particular meaningful for hypertext publishing applications.
Moderator: Prof. Paolo Paolini, Politecnico Di Milano Hypertext applications and tools in general deal with “passive” media. Values of passive media are static, in the sense that as time progresses their presentation (state) does not change. Values of active media have the property of changing presentation (evolution of the state), as time progresses. Active media such as video, animation and sound are becoming a “necessity” in most recent Hypertext applications. The panel discusses the impact of the introduction of active media in the area of hypertext. The impact of active media upon hypertext can involve several aspects: presentation of the content, design of the applications, structuring techniques of the applications, interplay between synchronization and links, runtime support, communication performances and techniques for LAN or WAN architectures. Panelists argue that: . Hypertext should remain well separated from Multimedia, being a separated field, with a different set of notions and needs; . A limited number of changes will be enough in order to adapt most of the Hypertext notions and techniques to multimedia; . A revolution is needed.
ABSTRACTA major obstacle hindering the advancement and commercial acceptance of hypermedia is the cost of converting paper based information into hypermedia form. The Hypermedia Authoring Research Toolkit (HART) was developed to support the human editor during this media-to-hypermedia conversion process. The tool's goal is to help improve the correctness and completeness of the hypermedia database, as well as reduce the media-to-hypermedia conversion cost.We believe it is not possible to properly convert media to hypermedia without the participation of a human editor during the transformation. It is therefore necessary to develop tools to assist the human during this process. By reducing the overhead associated with the physical management of the hyper-database construction, the subject specialist is better able to concentrate on the information content.Support is provided in two basic ways:By providing procedural guidance. From our experience constructing hypermedia systems we have developeds an efficient process for this media-to-hypermedia transformation.By providing intelligent assistance. At each phase in the transformation the system can suggest likely nodes, key phrases, index values, anchors, and links to the editor.The project's research focus is to identify the most effective methodologies to assist the human editor transform linear text, images and video into hypermedia structure.
Emerging software development environments are characterized by heterogeneity: they are composed of diverse object stores, user interfaces, and tools. This paper presents an approach for providing hypertext services in this heterogeneous setting. Central notions of the approach include the following. Anchors are established with respect to interactive views of objects, rather than the objects themselves. Composable, n-ary links can be established between anchors on different views of objects stored in distinct object bases. Viewers (and objects) may be implemented in different programming languages afforded by a client-server architecture. Multiple, concurrently active viewers enable multimedia hypertext services. The paper describes the approach and presents an architecture which supports it. Experience with the Chimera prototype and its relationship to other systems is described.
In semantically rich hypertexts it is attractive to enable presentation of a network of nodes and link at different levels of abstraction. It is also important that the user can interact with the hypertext using a command repertoire that reflects the chosen abstraction level. Based on a characterization of rich hypertext we introduce the concept of an interaction engine that governs the separation between internal hypertext representation and external screen presentation. This separation is the key principle of the HyperPro system. The HyperPro interaction engine is based on simple rules for presentation, interpretation of events, and menu set up. Much of the power of the interaction engine framework comes from the organization of these rules relative to the type of hierarchy of nodes and links, and relative to a hierarchy of so-called interaction schemes. The primary application domain discussed in the paper is program development and program documentation.
ABSTRACTOne of the crucial properties of documents through the ages has been their fixity. The ability to mark surfaces in relatively stable ways has made it possible for people distributed across space and time to see the same images and thereby to have access to the same meanings or communicative intent. Today, however, with the increasing use of digital technologies, it is often asserted that we are moving from the fixed world of paper documents to the fluid world of digital documents. In this paper I challenge this assertion, arguing instead that all documents, regardless of medium, are fixed and fluid. Thus, although paper documents do fix aspects of communication, they do (and must) also change; and although digital documents are easily changeable, they must also be capable of remaining fixed. I make use of this analysis in two ways: first, to examine the fixity and fluidity of hypertext; and second, to critique Bolter's argument in Writing Space concerning the movement from “fixed to fluid.”
