Hypertexts Pointers @ TECFA


This is a one-shot attempt to index some ressources related to Hypertext Technology in preparation for this year's STAF-18 course, where students will do exploratory projects under the topic of "Exotic Hypertexts". (oct 2002). I am interested in standards and systems that can be played with or at least looked at over the Internet. It is unlikely that this page will ever be updated beyound december 2002.

Most of Internet is "simple HTML + links" or data-base queries with some addition of debatable proprietry and opaque formats like Flash and PDF. However, some really cool stuff can be found out there. This page is dedicated to all these people who want more.

Origins and major hypertext systems

This is a very incomplete timeline: You will not find many good and rich hypertexts on the Web. Here are a few interesting hypertexts (or collections) in HTML

Standards

XLink

(XML Linking Language)

The XML Linking Language (XLink) allows elements to be inserted into XML documents in order to create and describe links between resources. It uses XML syntax to create structures that can describe links similar to the simple unidirectional hyperlinks of today's HTML, as well as more sophisticated links.

Topic Maps

Let's look at a definition of this:
This International Standard provides a standardized notation for interchangeably representing information about the structure of information resources used to define topics, and the relationships between topics. A set of one or more interrelated documents that employs the notation defined by this International Standard is called a "topic map". In general, the structural information conveyed by topic maps includes: * groupings of addressable information objects around topics (occurrences), and
* relationships between topics (associations).
Topic Maps can be formalized in various ways, e.g. SGML or XML. They are not hypertexts per se, but can be used to build sophisticated search and browse environments.

RDF

The Resource Description Framework (RDF) is an infrastructure that enables the encoding, exchange and reuse of structured metadata. RDF is an application of XML that imposes needed structural constraints to provide unambiguous methods of expressing semantics. RDF additionally provides a means for publishing both human-readable and machine-processable vocabularies designed to encourage the reuse and extension of metadata semantics among disparate information communities. The structural constraints RDF imposes to support the consistent encoding and exchange of standardized metadata provides for the interchangeability of separate packages of metadata defined by different resource description communities.

IMHO RDF can be used for other purposes than describing Metadata. E.g. the Resource Description Framework (RDF) overview article at W3C claims it to be a leightweight ontology system to support the exchange of knowledge on the Web.

Project Ideas

Software

Wikis

Wikis are the opposite of Xlinks + Topic Maps. They are meant to be as simple as it can be. Quote: "Wiki' is a composition system; it's a discussion medium; it's a repository; it's a mail system; it's a tool for collaboration .... Wiki Wiki is Hawaiian for 'quick'" In other words, it is a simple and efficient collaborative hypertext. You can the

Note: should I add other collaborative hypertexts here ? I don't want co-authoring systems, nor annotation systems (e.g. the ones that some journals use) to include here.

Project Ideas

Software

Visualization and Mind Tools

The idea is to use a graphical representation to represent and information space, e.g. a WebSite or parts of the Web as a whole. Many interesting research, lot's of interesting software (standalone, plugins, applets, etc.).

Software

Project Ideas

Interactive Fiction

The user(s) as player ! Quote from Suzanne Britton's excellent World of Interactive Fiction:
What is Interactive Fiction? Just what it says: it's a story with which the reader can interact. Sometimes "interaction" means problem solving--bringing the story to its resolution by overcoming the roadblocks".
This site is a good starting point, e.g. all links are first class. On the TADs site, you can find the following definition in a brief introduction:
'Interactive fiction' is a broad term for any sort of story in which the reader takes a role more active than reading words and turning pages; the term has been applied to all sorts of fiction that doesn't fit the traditional mold of short stories, novels, and the like. Interactive fiction includes anything from "choose your own adventure" books to hypertext novels to text adventures, but it's this last form that has become the most widely recognized meaning of the term.

Project Ideas

Software

Social navigation

"Pages that have people" or more radically as expressend in the article "It's Not What You Know, It's Who You Know: Work in the Information Age" by B.onnie A. Nardi, S. Whittaker and H. Schwarz.

Here are a few different sub-areas (but I have to explore this topic some more, and decide what I don't want here):

Software

Project Ideas

General Links and ressources


D.K.S.
Last modified: Thu Oct 24 10:04:24 MEST 2002