Hyperform

Abstract

Development of hypermedia systems is a complex matter. The current trend toward open, extensible, and distributed multiuser hypermedia systems adds additional complexity to the development process. As a means of reducing this complexity, there has been an increasing interest in hyperbase management systems that allow hypermedia system developers to abstract from the intricacies and complexity of the hyperbase layer and fully attend to application and user interface issues. Design, development, and deployment experiences of a dynamic, open, and distributed multiuser hypermedia system development environment called Hyperform is presented. Hyperform is based on the concepts of extensibility, tailorability, and rapid prototyping of hypermedia system services. Open, extensible hyperbase management systems permit hypermedia system developers to tailor hypermedia functionality for specific applications and to serve as a platform for research. The Hyperform development environment is comprised of multiple instances of four component types: (1) a hyperbase management system server, (2) a tool integrator, (3) editors, and (4) participating tools. Hyperform has been deployed in Unix environments, and experiments have shown that Hyperform greatly reduces the effort required to provide customized hyperbase management system support for distributed multiuser hypermedia systems.

Chimera

“…A representative sample of open hyperbase systems includes DHM [Grøn-baek and Trigg 1994], HOSS [Nü rnberg et al 1996], Hyperform [Wiil and Leggett 1997b], HyperDisco [Wiil and Leggett 1996], and SP3 Schnase et al 1994]. These systems differ from closed hyperbases in that applications can choose to store their content outside the hyperbase.…”

“…The reason for this difference in service lies in the fact that the internal mechanisms of the hyperbase enable some features, such as versioning, to be provided automatically for content stored in the hyperbase. In addition, some open hyperbase systems have extensible data models [Wiil and Leggett 1996;1997b], allowing the set of data types supported by the hyperbase to remain open.…”

A development environment for building component-based open hypermedia systems

“…Many of the ideas behind the current work were conceived in the HOSS [2] and Hyperform [5] projects as well as the ongoing work in the Open Hypermedia System Working Group (OHSWG) (www.ohswg.org).…”

Integrating infrastructure

“…Nonintegrated clients, of course, receive no services from HyperDisco but may be launched by HyperDisco as the result of a link traversal. It should be noted that HyperDisco provides a component called the tool integrator (that first appeared in Hyperform [36]) that eases the development of partially-integrated applications and provides a foundation for incrementally raising these clients to a fully-integrated status.…”