SGML: What is HyTime About? (Lloyd Rutledge)

Subject: Re: what is HyTime About?

Date: Wed, 16 Oct 1996 10:55:11 GMT

From: Lloyd Rutledge <lloyd@cwi.nl>

Newsgroup: comp.text.sgml


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Ulrich Windl wrote:
> 
> Sorry if this id off-topic, but would someone explain in few words
> what HyTime is about, and maybe what it has to do with SGML?

HyTime is an SGML architecture that specifies the generic hypermedia
structure of documents.  Following the guiding principle of SGML,
HyTime-defined structure is independent of any presentation of the
encoded document.  As an architecture, HyTime allows DTDs to be
written for individual document models that use HyTime constructs,
specifying how these document sets tailor the composition of these
constructs for their particular representational needs.

The hypermedia concepts directly represented by HyTime include

  - complex locating of document objects
  - relationships (hyperlinks) between document objects
  - numeric, measured associations between document objects

HyTime does not directly specify graphical interfaces, user
navigation, user interaction, or the placement of media on timelines
and screen displays.  These aspects of document processing are
rendered from the HyTime constructs in a manner specified by
mechanisms such as style sheets, as is done with SGML documents.

More information is available from my HyTime bookmark collection at
http://www.cwi.nl/~lloyd/HyTime/.  The TechnoTeacher home page at
http://www.techno.com/ and Elliot Kimber's HyTime page at
http://www.drmacro.com/hyprlink/index.htm directly contain much useful
descriptive information.

Hope this helps,
Lloyd

--
Lloyd Rutledge                                         vox: +31 20
5924127
Centrum voor Wiskunde en Informatica (CWI)             fax: +31 20
5924199
Kruislaan 413,  NL-1098 SJ Amsterdam, The Netherlands  net: lloyd@cwi.nl
P.O. Box 94079, NL-1090 GB Amsterdam, The Netherlands 
http://www.cwi.nl/~lloyd