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.