A Dynamically Extensible Open Cross-Document Link Service

Abstract

Since the introduction of the term hypertext in the early 1960s, the goal has been to link, annotate as well as transclude parts of documents. However, most existing document linking approaches show some shortcomings in terms of the offered link granularity and cannot easily be extended to support new document formats. More recently, we see new document formats such as the Office Open XML (OOXML) standard which facilitate the linking to parts of certain document formats. We present a dynamically extensible open cross-document link service enabling the linking and integration of arbitrary documents and multimedia content. In our link browser, emerging document formats are supported via visual plug-ins or by integrating third-party applications via gateways. The presented concepts and architecture for dynamic extensibility improve the document life cycle in so-called cross-media information spaces and enable future-proof cross-document linking.

Towards Cross-Media Information Spaces and Architectures

“…While the Memex vision only included a single media type (microfilm), we have to deal with a potentially unlimited number of media types. In order to support open cross-media linking, Signer and Norrie [17] proposed an architecture with visual media plug-ins and we have recently realised a solution for open cross-media linking in the form of an extensible cross-document link service [18]. For each document format or media type to be rendered in the link browser, a visual plug-in must be implemented.…”

Cross-Media Document Linking and Navigation

“…search and retrieve plug-ins In order to overcome the shortcomings of link models in existing document formats as well as to enable users in linking pieces of information across different document types, we have presented the dynamically extensible cross-document link service [23,24]. The link service enables users to create external bi-and multidirectional hyperlinks within and across documents.…”

“…In earlier work [23,24], we have presented a dynamically extensible cross-document link service addressing the shortcomings of existing document link models and linking solutions. Figure 1 illustrates the conceptual schema of our link service offering a plug-in architecture to integrate different document formats as well as third-party document viewers.…”

“…MADCOW [2]) or the XLink standard 1 have been proposed in order to address the shortcomings of the link models of existing document formats. Nevertheless, as explained in [22,24], most existing linking solutions have two major shortcomings. First of all, they only support the linking across a predefined set of document formats that have to be visualised and authored within the link service itself.…”

Enhanced Document Retrieval and Discovery Based on a Combination of Implicit and Explicit Document Relationships

“…In addition, our solution exploits explicit links (i.e. bidirectional hyperlinks) that are defined between documents based on an existing link service [12][13][14].…”