JPH05233419A - Hypertext system - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To enable a user to freely define and alter link information without any danger of alteration by setting only link information defined by a user in link information as link information that the user can alter. CONSTITUTION:This system is equipped with information 102 indicating the contents of a node 101 and an anchor 103 as an area where relative information to another node defined on the information 102 is defined. Further, the system has a list of link names defined in the anchor 103, the link names 105 of the link information that the user defines among the pieces of link information in the anchor 103, and link names 106 of link information that the system defines among the pieces of link information in the anchor 103. The link information previously defined by the system is not regarded as an object of link information that the user can alter. Consequently, the danger that the link information previously defined by the system is lost is eliminated and the user can freely define and alter the link information.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a system for defining link information of a system using hypertext.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art A hypertext system divides a chunk of information into a plurality of pieces of fragment information nodes and connects them by links in order to show the relationship between the divided pieces of fragment information nodes. Has realized the technology of. For the hypertext concept itself,
"ASCII" (ASCII, ASCII 10
1989 No. 148) pp. 221-236. A specific example of a hypertext system is "Software" in the separate volume "Nikkei Computer".
(Nikkei BP, 1989.7.28) pp. 111 ~
208 describes Hyper Card, Japanese Guide, computer, etc.

Conventionally, the link information is only fixed link information that is defined in advance by the system, and the user cannot define or change the link information. On the contrary, the user can freely set the link information. There are two types of systems in which the link information can be defined in and the link information defined both by the system and by the user can be changed. An example of the former is a system in which information is stored in a non-rewritable storage medium such as a CD-ROM, and an example of the latter is a Hyper Card.

When we read a book, we take notes on the edges of the book or underline the text. In the hypertext system, the texts, figures and footnotes which are the information given by the author are the information which the system has given, and the figures and figures and footnotes defined to understand the contents of the text are defined in advance by the system. It can be said that it is the linked information. Also, the notes and underlines written by the reader can be said to be link information defined by the user. The information given by the author cannot be rewritten, but notes and underlines written by the reader are
Can be rewritten. However, in the conventional hypertext system, there is no mixture of the non-modifiable information provided by the author and the modifiable information written by the reader, like a book.

[0005] Similarly to the case where the reader writes a memo or underline in the book, when the user defines the link information between the nodes, there is something that the user intends and the link information is defined. However, when the user follows the link information to the link destination node, it is not known whether the link information is the link information predefined by the system or the link information defined by the user. This is inconvenient for the user to follow the link information to the linked node.

[0006]

In the conventional hypertext system, it is impossible to change or define the link information.
Either all link information is targeted for change, and information that cannot be changed and information that can be changed, such as books, are not mixed. Therefore, there is a risk that the hypertext system consisting only of fixed link information predefined by the system or the link information predefined by the system may be changed, but the hypertext system that allows the user to freely define link information. There is only a text system.

Further, in the conventional hypertext system in which the user can define the link information, when the user follows the link information and goes to another node, the user defines whether the link information is the link information predefined by the system. I don't know if it is the link information. Therefore, in some nodes, the user may not be able to immediately find the link information that he / she has intentionally defined.

An object of the present invention is to provide a hypertext system in which a user can freely define and change link information without risk of changing the link information predefined by the system. Another object of the present invention is to provide a method of displaying whether it is link information predefined by the system or link information defined by the user so that it can be identified.

[0009]

According to the present invention, a user can freely define link information, but the target of the link information that can be changed by the user is hypertext in which only the link information defined by the user is included in the link information. Provide the system. In addition, a system is provided in which the link information defined in advance by the system and the link information defined by the user are displayed in different forms for easy identification.

[0010]

[Function] By not linking the link information predefined by the system with the link information that can be changed by the user, the user can freely define the link information without risk of losing the link information predefined by the system. , Can be changed. When displaying the link information,
The user interface is improved by displaying the link information defined in advance by the system and the link information defined by the user in different forms of expression for easy identification. With the improved user interface, the user can easily identify whether the link information is predefined by the system or the link information defined by the user, and can easily find the link information that the user wants to follow. ..

Further, the improvement in the performance of the user interface enables the user to easily identify whether the link information is the link information predefined by the system or the link information defined by the user.
It is possible to easily identify a difference in operability with respect to the link information, for example, whether the link information can be changed or cannot be changed.

[0012]

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS FIG. 1 schematically shows an example of a screen displayed on a display device when the present invention is carried out.
Reference numeral 101 is an area in which information of a certain node of hypertext is displayed, 102 is information indicating the content of a certain node 101, 103 is information indicating the content of a certain node 101.
2 is an anchor, which is an area in which related information to another node defined above is defined, 104 is an anchor 10
3, a list of link names defined in No. 3, 105 is a link name of user-defined link information among the link information defined in some anchor 103, and 106 is some anchor 1
It is the link name of the link information defined by the system among the link information defined in 03.

FIG. 2 is an example of a hardware configuration for implementing the present invention. 201 is a central processing unit, 202
Is an input device such as a keyboard for inputting commands and the like, 203 is a pointing device such as a mouse for pointing an arbitrary position on the display device, 204 is a display device, and 205 is unchangeable information. The storage device 206 is a storage device for storing changeable information, and 207 is a main storage device for temporarily storing information to be processed by the central processing unit 201.

FIG. 3 shows an example of the data structure of the link information of the node on the main storage device. 301 is the information of one node, 302 is the pointer to the area that stores the information of the anchor above the node, 303 is the information of one anchor above the node, and 304 is the position of the starting point of the anchor. Information of coordinates for indicating, 305 is information for indicating the position of the end point of the anchor, 306 is a pointer to an area in which link information defined in the anchor is stored, 30
7 is one link information defined in the anchor,
308 is a link name of link information, 309 is an identifier for identifying whether certain link information is system-defined link information or user-defined link information, and 310 is a link destination for tracing from the link information. Pointer to the area storing the information for the node, 311
Is information for tracing to the link destination node, and 312 is information for the link destination node. When a plurality of anchors are defined for one node, a plurality of pieces of information 303 for one anchor above the node are defined,
When a plurality of link information is defined in one anchor, a plurality of link information 307 defined in the anchor is defined. 305 is, for example,
The coordinates of the end point for indicating the information of the end point of the anchor may be used, or the width and height of the anchor may be used. 312 designates the name of the link destination node, for example. Specifically, it can be realized by the following C language data structure.

Struct node {(1) int * panchor; (2):}; struct anchor {(3) int sx, sy; (4) int fx, fy; (5) int * plink; (6):} struct link {(7) char linkname [10]; (8) int flag; (9) int * preference; (10):} struct referent {(11) char nodename [20]; (12):} (1) The structure node (node) is a table 301 holding node information. 30 for the structure node
There is a pointer (2) to the area holding the information of the two anchors. The structure anchor (anchor) of (3) is a table 303 holding the information of the anchor. The structure anchor includes x and y coordinates (4) indicating the position of the starting point of the anchor 304, x and y coordinates indicating the position of the ending point of the anchor 305, or the width and height (5) of the anchor.
There is a pointer (6) to the area holding the link information of 306. The structure link (7) is a table 307 holding link information. The structure link has a name (8) of link information 308, an identifier (9) of 309, and a pointer (10) to an area holding information of a node of a link destination of 310. The structure referent of (11) is a table 311 holding information on the node of the link destination. In the structure referent, the name (1
There is 2).

FIG. 4 shows a processing procedure showing processing of a program when the present invention is carried out when the data of FIG. 3 is created in the main storage device 207 under the hardware configuration shown in FIG. This is an example. Hereinafter, the details of the processing procedure will be described with reference to FIG. In the implementation, an H-Window system (hereinafter abbreviated as H window) running on UNIX operating system ¹ (hereinafter abbreviated as UNIX) will be described as an example.

1: UNIX is UNIX System Laborato
ries, Inc. Developed and licensed by

A certain node designated by some means such as inputting a node name is displayed on the display device 204.
When displayed in, read the data inside the node. First, in step 401, the system-defined node data to be displayed is read from the external storage device 205 into the main storage device 207. When reading the data defined by the system, an identifier indicating that the data is system defined is added to the identifier 309 of FIG. Next, in step 402, the data of the node to be displayed, which is defined by the user from the external storage device 206, is stored in the main storage device 20.
Read in 7. When reading user-defined data, an identifier indicating that the data is user-defined is added to the identifier 309 in FIG. When the system-defined data and the user-defined data are read into the main storage device 207, the node is changed to the display device 2 in step 403.
It is displayed on 04. After the node is displayed on the screen of the display device 204, it is sufficient to carry out an interactive process with the user while the node is displayed.

In this embodiment, the case where the system-defined data and the user-defined data are stored in different external storage devices has been taken as an example. It can be realized even if it is stored as a file. When storing in a single readable / writable external storage device, the data is read by distinguishing whether it is a system-defined data file or a user-defined data file, for example, by the extension of the file name. At this time, it is possible to identify which information is used, so that the same data as the data created in FIG. 4 can be created in the main storage device. Also, it can be realized even if it is stored in one file. When the data is stored in one file, the data including the identifier indicating whether it is the data defined by the system or the data defined by the user may be stored in the file. If the data is stored in different files, is it system-defined data?
Data including an identifier indicating whether the data is user-defined may be stored in the file. Whichever method is used, if there is an identifier for identifying whether it is system-defined data or user-defined data when the node data is created in the main memory, The invention can be realized.

Specifically, the following data is stored in the external storage devices 205 and 206.

Node (N1) (1) anchor (N1, A1) (2) s_pos (A1, sx, sy) (3) f_pos (A1, fx, fy) (4): link (A1, L1) (5 ): Referent (L1, R1) (6): N1 is the node name, A1 is the anchor number, sx, s
y is the coordinate of the start point of the anchor, fx and fy are the coordinates or width and height of the end point of the anchor, L1 is the link name, and R1 is the name of the link destination node. The node () of (1) declares that the definition of the node N1 is started, and the anchor () of (2) declares the anchor.
In s_pos () of (3), declaration of anchor start point, (4)
F_pos () declares the anchor end point, (5) the link () declares the link, and (6) the referent () declares the link destination. If they are stored in the same file, the link declaration in (5) is changed to link (A1, L1, Flag), and the flag is system-defined link information or user-defined link information. It suffices to add an identifier indicating whether or not

FIG. 5 is an example of a processing procedure showing the processing of the program when the present invention is carried out by using the data on the main storage processing device 207 of FIG. 3 under the hardware configuration shown in FIG. Is. The details of the processing procedure will be described below with reference to FIG.

In step 501, the user selects an anchor while a certain node is displayed on the screen. The anchor may be selected by using the keyboard of the input device 202 or the pointing device 203. Input device 2 to select anchor
If the 02 keyboard is used, move the cursor to the position of the anchor to be selected on the node and press the return key. If selection is made using the pointing device 203, the cursor of the pointing device 203 is moved to the position to be selected and clicked. Whichever method you use to select the anchor, you can see the selection.

In the following, the pointing device 203
The procedure by the selection method using is shown. For example, in the H window, when the mouse is selected as the pointing device 203, information from the mouse is returned to the user program in the form of an escape sequence. This escape sequence contains the coordinate data of the clicked mouse button. The configuration of the escape sequence of the H window system is, for example, “HI-U
X Programmer's Guide Window Edition "(2050-
3-411-40), pp. 198-200. You can use this function to know the value of the clicked coordinate.

After the point of the selected coordinates is obtained, it is next checked whether or not there is an anchor in the portion including the point obtained in step 502. This can be done by comparing whether the x and y coordinates of the point selected by the user are both within the coordinates of the start point and the end point of the anchor. To determine whether or not an anchor is selected, the coordinates of the starting point and the ending point of the anchor may be known. Information about the position of one anchor is in table 303. The table 303 is searched and the anchor start point information 304
From the end point information 305, the coordinates of the start point and the end point of the anchor can be obtained. If it is the selected anchor, steps 503 to 508 are performed, and if there is no anchor, nothing is performed. Step 50
In 3, the pointer 306 to the link information defined in the selected anchor is recognized.

Next, the link information is read from the table 307 in the information area designated by the pointer 306 to the main storage device 209, and the link name is displayed on the display device 204. An example of a procedure for displaying the link name will be given.
The link name can be displayed by repeating steps 504 to 508 until there is no link information. For example, from table 307 to step 5
In 04, the link name 308 of the first link information is read out, and step 505 and the identifier 309 of the link information are read.
Read out. In step 506, the link information identifier 3
It is determined whether 09 is the link information identifier defined by the system or the link information defined by the user, and if 09 is the identifier of the link information defined by the system,
In step 507, the display form is displayed in the form of system-defined link information. If the link information is user-defined, in step 508 the display form is displayed in the form of user-defined link information. The display form is such that the display form of the link information defined by the system is reversed and the display form of the link information defined by the user is set to the normal state, so that the display form can be easily identified. Change the form and display. In order to control the display of the normal state and the display of the reverse state, a predetermined escape sequence is sent to the display device 204 before displaying the link name.

The structure of the escape sequence of the H window system is described, for example, in "HI-UX Programmer's Guide Window Edition" (2050-3-411-40), pp.237-239. This makes it possible to change the display state.

In the above embodiments, the normal state and the reverse state are used as the change of the display form. For example, in a display device capable of displaying color, the background color is changed depending on the type of link information. It may be made identifiable by a method.

[0029]

According to the present invention, the user can freely define and change the link information between the respective nodes without the risk of losing the link information predefined by the system. In addition, the link information predefined by the system and the link information defined by the user
The user interface is improved by displaying in different forms of representation for easy identification, and the user can easily determine whether the link information is predefined by the system or the link information defined by the user. The link information that the user wants to follow can be easily found, and it is possible to identify whether the link information is predefined by the system or the link information defined by the user. The difference, for example, whether the link information is changeable or unchangeable, can be easily identified.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is an explanatory diagram of a screen displayed on a display device when the present invention is implemented.

FIG. 2 is a block diagram of hardware for implementing the present invention.

FIG. 3 is a block diagram of a data structure on a main storage device of link information of nodes.

FIG. 4 is a flowchart of a processing procedure showing processing of a program when implementing the present invention.

FIG. 5 is a flowchart of a processing procedure showing processing of a program when implementing the present invention.

[Explanation of symbols]

101 ... Area displaying information of one node of hypertext, 102 ... Information showing contents of certain node 101, 103 ... Information showing contents of certain node 101 10
2 is an area in which relevant information to another node defined above is defined as an anchor, 104 ... Anchor 10
List of link names defined in No. 3, 105 ... Link name of user-defined link information among link information defined in certain anchor 103, 106 ... Certain anchor 10
The link name of the link information defined by the system out of the link information defined in 3.

Claims (4)

[Claims] 1. At least one readable / writable storage device for storing a program representing data to be processed and a sequence of control instructions, at least one read-only storage device, and controlled by a program in the storage device. A central processing unit, a display device for displaying the result of the processing of the central processing unit, an input device for giving an instruction to the data displayed on the display device, and a position on the display device In a hypertext system that consists of a pointing device, divides a block of information into a plurality of pieces of nodes, and can define link information to show the relationship between each piece of divided pieces of information, It is pre-defined by the system as a hypertext node-to-node link. There are, hypertext system and user unmodifiable link information, the user is able to define, characterized in that the modifiable link information coexist. 2. At least one readable / writable storage device for storing a program representing a data to be processed and a sequence of control instructions, a central processing unit controlled by a program in the storage unit, and the central processing unit. A unit of information comprising a display device for displaying the result of the processing of 1, the input device for giving an instruction to the data displayed on the display device, and the pointing device for designating the position on the display device. In a hypertext system that can define link information in order to show the relation between each of the divided pieces of information, and show the relation between the nodes of hypertext. Link information that is predefined by the system as a link and cannot be changed by the user. Hypertext system, characterized in that THE is to define, storing alterable link information in separate files on one read-write memory device. 3. At least one readable / writable storage device for storing a program representing a sequence of data and control instructions to be processed, a central processing unit controlled by a program in the storage device, and the central processing. A unit for displaying a result of processing of the device, an input device for giving an instruction to the data displayed on the display device, and a pointing device for designating a position on the display device. In a hypertext system in which information is divided into a plurality of pieces of nodes, and link information may be defined to indicate the relation between the pieces of divided pieces of information, the relation between the hypertext node and the node. Link that is not predefined by the system and cannot be changed by the user. And linkable link information which can be defined by the user and which can be changed, with each of the link information, an identifier indicating whether the link information is the link information defined by the user or the link information predefined by the system. A hypertext system characterized by storing them in the same file. 4. The link, as defined in claim 1, which is previously defined by the system and which cannot be changed by the user when the name of the link information defined in each piece of fragment information is displayed on the display device. A hypertext system that displays information and the form of the link information that can be defined and changed by the user in different forms.