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.
1. Origins and major hypertext systems
This is a very incomplete timeline:
- 1945: V. Bush, As We May Think
- 1965: Ted Nelson invents the word "Hypertext"
- 1968: Engelbart demos "HyperMedia" over the network
- 1989: Tim Berners-Lee builds the first prototype of the WWW
- 1991: Gopher (Menu-based navigation through files and services on the Internet)
- 1992-1993: WWWW starts spreading
- 1981: Start of Ted Nelson's Xanadu project which never managed to take off, first available implementation in 1999 (?)
- 1992 / 1997 Hytime is a complex SGML application. Hytime
is an ISO standard that has been rarely
used, but had a big influence on the definition of XLink and other standards
You will not find many good and rich hypertexts on the Web.
Here are a few interesting hypertexts (or collections) in HTML
2. Standards
(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.
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.
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.
- RDF Site Summary is an XML application that conforms to RDF and is used for example for news and weblog syndication. Supported by many news and community portals (e.g. PostNuke)
- RDF is integrated into Mozilla[ need to explore this ]
- Study syndication topology of RDF/RSS news-feeds starting from TecfaSEED :)
- Write your own semantic network formalism that is RDF compliant and write a tutorial on RDF
- Make an in depth study of the RDF formalism, do an example and use an RDF processor (?). Relate the whole thing to semantic web project.
- Make a comparison of linking in all major formalisms, and if software is available, make a demo of advanced XLink features. (simple xlinks are not interesting enough)
- Anything at the author level for XLink ? Xlinkit ?
- Ontopia Omigator. Free topic map navigator (needs renewal once per month I think). (TEST OK) . They also build tmproc, a topic map engine
- See the Resource Description Framework (RDF) overview page
- TAP, this Stanford Research Project produced for example the TAPache, and Apache module to publish data via the TAP GetData interface which reads an RDF file and can pull out data from a special directory.
3. 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.
- Take the Wiki Tour Bus in order to get and idea of what some Wiki communities do and read the discussion about the Wiki TourBus. Interesting debate on how to link Wikis
- The Wikipedia is a nice attempt to build a free encyclopdia. Over 50'000 articles ! Translated (at least in part) to many languages
- Compare Wikis (original philosophy and derivations)
- Webs of Wikis, e.g. the tourbus
- Where does it work best ? worst ? Are the guidelines particular or general ones ? Best case examples like the wikipedia.
- Some Wiki software is indexed in Portal's Pointers Page. At Tecfa we use either PhpWiki (either as Apache application or integration in PostNuke and Swikis. Will try also MoinMoin and Twiki.
- At TECFA we have a Swiki, a stand-alone PHPWiki and one that is integrated in the TECFA Seed Portal, I plan to install a MoinMoin Wiki too
4. 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.).
- DAO's InfoViz page has a nice list of pointers (not updated since 2001)
- Elia's Proj13 ( Travail STAF-18 Fanbny ) is an overview paper (in french) written by a former student
-
- There are several on-line spaces. One of the best ones is certainly
map.net (also called "Antartica"). Works
now with any modern browser (tested with
- An Atlas of Cyberspaces - Best index page on cybermaps
- Any Internet Graphics Format: SVG, Flash, VRML can be used to build such spaces. One also can imagine some simple XML grammar for encoding nodes and relations and a style sheets that does it (though it will be difficult to go beyound circles and even that needs math, e.g. see the XML Grove) for some technical XML/XSLT/SVG tricks
- Tinderbox: According to TidBITS article "it is aimed at the single user, and is meant as a kind of lightweight database, a text snippet keeper, a note-taking utility, a way of organizing pieces of information and perhaps exporting them as HTML". Tinderbox is made by Eastgate, the people who created
Storyspace (derived from G. Landow's work at Brown, one of the few real commercial hypertext system out there).
- IHM Concept Map Software
- WordNet. is an online lexical reference system whose design is inspired by current psycholinguistic theories of human lexical memory. English nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs are organized into synonym sets, each representing one underlying lexical concept. Different relations link the synonym sets.
- The TG WikiBrowser (TEST OK) helps you browsing through a wiki. There are other tools like a Google Browser and a LinkBrowser.
- There are several commercial applications like: InXight, TheBrain and ThinkMap
- VisIT! is an interesting search client that displays results graphically [find URL again]
- Cheops ("lost" Java applet, DKS has copy)
- Add other tools ?: e.g. mindmappers, outliners like "more", qualitative data-analysis tools like "Atlas (rather not), idea management (not websites) etc. [see the tool we use at TECFA]
- Implement a navigation map for some domain (We already had an overview paper done in some other staf-18 course)
5. 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.
- Interactive Fiction has very active user communities. Here are a few worthwile place: XYZZY News is a nice magazine for interactive fiction enthusiasts. Brass Lantern, the "adventure game website" also features news and a very nice collection of articles. The Aventure Collective claims over 1 Mio of readers since 1996 and they deserve them too. Besides more mags you can read, there is also good old
rec.games.int-fiction.
- We list some Interactive Fiction engines in our Games Pointers Page in addition to more pointers.
- There are many different styles of Interactive Fiction, even 3D immersive worlds or games like Myst. S. Britton has a good list of (text-based) Best of Interactive Fiction i.e. the interactive equivalent of a good book. David Glasser has compiled Good IF ofr beginners.
- Develop an educational game, e.g. one that trains basic English sentence structure and words (since the IF parser can do this)
- All major IF sites have sections about IF authoring and tools. David Glasser's Interactive Fiction Authorship FAQ has compiled the essentials. There are many authoring platforms. On of the most popular is TADS
6. 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):
- Massive multi-player games and MUDs have people (and maybe additional objects) inside places. Such places are texts (like in the MUDs) or can be considered to be at least information holders, i.e. texts in a wide semiotic sens
- Some multi-player games (but we do want information in places, not just backgrounds + things to shoot at)
- People-enhanced Web Pages, e.g. WebSites like Amazon where people can leave traces of comments or tools like Footprints
- Develop an interesting MOO space, e.g. with objects and triggers (adventure quests), as hypertext space with very rich descriptions (rooms, objects, entries, personae, etc.)
- Study principles for social navigation, see e.g. Design Principles For Social Navigation Tools (PDF) by Forsberg et al. and apply these principles to study websites that have traces of people (e.g. Amazon or portals like TecfaSEED).
7. General Links and ressources
D.K.S.
Last modified: Thu Oct 24 10:04:24 MEST 2002