Xref: utzoo alt.hypertext:686 comp.text:7690 Path: utzoo!utgpu!cs.utexas.edu!usc!apple!blob From: blob@Apple.COM (Brian Bechtel) Newsgroups: alt.hypertext,comp.text Subject: Re: Designing Online Documents Message-ID: <47034@apple.Apple.COM> Date: 3 Dec 90 14:12:47 GMT References: <5514@newton.praxis.co.uk> Organization: Apple Computer Inc., Cupertino, CA Lines: 45 brennan@rtp.dg.com (Dave Brennan) writes: >In article joe [Joe Zitt] writes: > I've worked on a few projects involving text-hypertext conversion. > Currently I'm working with a team (about 6 people) to take a large stack > on man pages (394 of them) and convert them into a hypertext database to > be read with KRS software. >What type of problems have you run into on this project? I've been working >on an X11/Motif hypertext help system, which will probably eventually have >to display man pages (which I'd like to see). I haven't put a lot of >thought into yet and would be interested in hearing from others. You should read "Engineering Issues for Hypertext" by Robert Glushko in the Hypertext '89 Proceedings, available from the ACM. I (ahem) have a paper in the ECHT'90 (European Conference on HyperText) Proceedings discussing the implementation of Inside Macintosh as Hypertext, where I discuss some issues we encountered. The ECHT'90 Proceedings are published as a book by Cambridge University Press; "Hypertext: Concepts, Systems and Applications," edited by A. Rizk, N. Streitz, and J. Andre. >The SEE ALSO sections is an obvious place to look for cross references, but >I've been wondering about how we can detect other items in text that are >good cross reference candidates. In many cases the man page refers to >include files or structures not included in the mans which would be useful >to call up. I'm always browsing through /usr/include when I can't find >enough information in the man pages. If information is meant to be linked in, then you need to link it in. Document Selection is a key issue in Hypertext engineering; of course, you could include the world (a la Xanadu) but reality usually precludes including that much material. >What will writers be doing with the clusters of articles? Enhancing their >hypertext suitability? It seems that to make non-hypertext documents >"good" hypertext documents some manual intervention will almost inevitably >be involved. (Which is what I'm finding as I try to convert a printed >manual to hypertext form.) So far, I haven't seen any indications that you can do automatic hypertext conversion of printed material, especially when the printed material was designed before the hypertext project started. --Brian Bechtel blob@apple.com "My opinion, not Apple's" Brought to you by Super Global Mega Corp .com