Xref: utzoo alt.hypertext:696 comp.text:7727 Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!usc!samsung!emory!stiatl!srchtec!glushko From: glushko@srchtec.UUCP (Bob Glushko) Newsgroups: alt.hypertext,comp.text Subject: Re: Designing Online Documents Summary: automatic conversion to hypertext Message-ID: <365@srchtec.UUCP> Date: 7 Dec 90 13:00:26 GMT References: <5514@newton.praxis.co.uk> <47034@apple.Apple.COM> Followup-To: alt.hypertext Organization: search technology, inc - Norcross, GA Lines: 62 In article <47034@apple.Apple.COM>, blob@Apple.COM (Brian Bechtel) writes: > > 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. The key here is that whether a document is relevant depends on the task the user performs with it, which means that you can't select documents just because they are there. An example I use is a software manual and a phone book. I can imagine lots of benefits for having both the manual and the phone book online, but I can't think of many that require the two of them to be linked together. Another example is the phone book (yellow pages) and a map. Each is useful to have online, but there are nice complementarities between the map and the phone book. Links from the map to the phone book let me know the phone number of anyplace on the map and let me quickly learn about the kind of neighborhood it is in (lots of bars, or lots of churches?), while links from the phone book to the map let me quickly find out where someplace is. A third example would be a thesaurus and the phone book. Links from the phone book to the thesaurus would help me generate other categories to look under (is it automobile, car, ??), but I can't imagine useful links from the thesaurus to the phone book. So useful links might be asymmetric. > >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. You might not be able to do completely automatic conversion, but you can do some. I try to determine (or locate) the writing guidelines that were followed when the documents were created; sometimes the best thing to do is to try to find a writer. Writers can often be educated about the consequences of certain styles, so you can get them to change for the next revision of the document. (E.g., tell the writers to make sure they cite a document in a unique way, rather than by page number or by indirect reference like "see the next section"). I use a couple of different indexing programs to see how cross references are used. see figure 1... Figure 2 says ... in FIgure 6, we ... the idea is to understand the variation in cross reference structure so that you can either write a program to locate them, or so that you can convince your writers to do it differently (and more reliably) the next time. Progressive refinement of your methods and the source files that you apply them to is the essence of an engineering approach to hypertext, which is why I call it hypertext engineering. bob glushko search technology 4725 peachtree corners circle norcross, ga 30092 (404) 441-1457