HYPERFORM - A HYPERMEDIA SYSTEM-DEVELOPMENT ENVIRONMENT

Development of hypermedia systems is a complex matter. The current tre nd toward open, extensible, and distributed multiuser hypermedia syste ms adds additional complexity to the development process. As a means o f reducing this complexity, there has been an increasing interest in h yperbase management systems that allow hypermedia system developers to abstract from the intricacies and complexity of the hyperbase layer a nd fully attend to application and user interface issues. Design, deve lopment, and deployment experiences of a dynamic, open, and distribute d multiuser hypermedia system development environment called Hyperform is presented. Hyperform is based on the concepts of extensibility, ta ilorability, and rapid prototyping of hypermedia system services. Open , extensible hyperbase management systems permit hypermedia system dev elopers to tailor hypermedia functionality for specific applications a nd to serve as a platform for research. The Hyperform development envi ronment is comprised of multiple instances of four component types: (1 ) a hyperbase management system server, (2) a tool integrator, (3) edi tors, and (4) participating tools. Hyperform has been deployed in Unix environments, and experiments have shown that Hyperform greatly reduc es the effort required to provide customized hyperbase management syst em support for distributed multiuser hypermedia systems.