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HyperTree: a structural approach to web authoring
Author(s) -
Salampasis Michail,
Tait John,
Hardy Colin
Publication year - 1997
Publication title -
software: practice and experience
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.437
H-Index - 70
eISSN - 1097-024X
pISSN - 0038-0644
DOI - 10.1002/(sici)1097-024x(199712)27:12<1411::aid-spe136>3.0.co;2-e
Subject(s) - computer science , hypermedia , world wide web , hypertext , hyperbolic tree , web navigation , html , web modeling , hyperlink , hierarchy , markup language , information retrieval , web page , xml , mathematical analysis , mathematics , hyperbolic manifold , economics , market economy , hyperbolic function
The expansion of the World Wide Web (WWW) has created an increasing need for tools capable of supporting WWW authors in composing documents using the HyperText Markup Language (HTML). Currently, most web authors use tools which are basically ordinary text editors and have additional features to facilitate the easy and correct use of HTML tags. This approach places the burden on the web author to design and then create the entire web site in a top‐down fashion, without any explicit support for the structural design of the site. In this paper we discuss an alternative structural approach to Web authoring, which is based on the use of the HyperTree hypermedia system as the central authoring tool. The advantages of using HyperTree are two‐dimensional. Firstly, web authors can manage a web site as a single complete hypermedia database. For example, HyperTree provides facilities like the automatic creation of indices and the discovery of link inconsistencies. Additionally, it organizes the web pages in an easy to understand hierarchy without using any HTML directly. Secondly, web end‐users can benefit from the use of HyperTree, since seeking information in structured web sites is generally less disorientating and develops fewer cognitive overheads. ©1997 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.