Scanning Large Texts with HyperScope

Posted on Published by Eugene Eric Kim

Speaking of capabilities, while digging up relevant passages in 1984, I really wished I had a digital version of the book so that I could use HyperScope on it. Specifically, I wanted to find the passages that contained the word, “dictionary.”    (LEH)

With a standard Web browser and an HTML version of the text, I would have hit Alt-F, typed “dictionary,” and scanned the surrounding paragraphs of each found instance, most likely scrolling up and down to examine the context.    (LEI)

With HyperScope, I would have changed the View Spec to wi;"dictionary";. This would show me only paragraphs containing the word, “dictionary.” I would then scan each paragraph, and if I found something that piqued my interest, I would Jump to that Item with the View Spec lj, which would show me only that paragraph and its sibling paragraphs (a “plex” in Augment terminology) with the previous content filter turned off.    (LEJ)

If HyperScope had multiwindow capabilities (which it will eventually), I could do each of these operations in its own window, which would allow me to jump back and forth easily between different views of the same document.    (LEK)

This is a great example of how View Specs and Granular Addressability allow you to navigate through a large text easily and effectively in ways that aren’t possible with today’s everyday tools.    (LEL)

URI Syntax for the HyperScope

Posted on Published by Eugene Eric Kim

At last Tuesday’s HyperScope meeting, Jonathan Cheyer and I spent an inordinate amount of time debating the syntax for HyperScope URIs, much to the amusement and chagrin of our peers. Although the topic may seem insignificant, it is actually quite layered with no easy answers. I’m going to summarize the issues here. Most of you will probably not care about the intricacies of the argument itself, but at minimum, it should reveal a bit more about the project itself.    (KI2)

HyperScope is meant to be a transitional tool that will enable people to play with Augment‘s more sophisticated capabilities within their existing environments. In the immediate future, that means the Firefox web browser (and probably Internet Explorer as well). In the not-to-distant future, that could extend to a range of applications, from Eclipse to OpenOffice and beyond.    (KI3)

This intent strongly informs our requirements. In particular, we need to make sure we are bootstrapping the system on top of existing technologies (such as URIs) effectively and correctly, and we need to make sure the system is evolvable. Both of these requirements play a big role in our debate.    (KI4)

So what’s all the fuss about? One of Augment‘s coolest (and most fundamental) features is its sophisticated addressability. The example most folks know about manifests itself as Purple Numbers, namely the ability to reference a specific node in a document in a standard way. But Augment can do much, much more. It can do path expressions, similar in spirit to XPath, which allows you to reference some subset of nodes in a document. (See my notes on transcluding a subset of nodes via Purple Numbers).    (KI5)

You can also embed View Specs in an address. For example, suppose you decided that the best way to view a page was the first level of nodes only. You could specify that as a View Spec in the link itself, so that when someone followed that link, they would see only the first level of nodes rather than the entire document.    (KI6)

With the HyperScope, we’re bringing these capabilities to the plain ol’ World Wide Web — that is, assuming your client knows how to interpret these addresses properly. With our initial release (due September 2006), this will require loading a JavaScript library. All document addressability will happen entirely on the client-side. This is a good thing for a lot of reasons, the most important being adoptability. It will be easy for people to play with the HyperScope. All they’ll have to do is click on a link in Firefox (and probably Internet Explorer).    (KI7)

However, the fact that we’re doing a client-side only version of the HyperScope does not preclude the creation of a joint client/server version or even a mostly server-side version where the client is essentially a dumb web browser. In fact, we’d encourage the creation of both. We don’t care some much about implementation as we do capabilities and interoperability.    (KI8)

Here’s the question: How should we include these extended addressing capabilities in real-life URIs?    (KI9)

There are three possible solutions:    (KIA)

  • Embed them as a fragment address (i.e. following a hash mark at the end of the URI).    (KIB)
  • Embed them either as part of the path or query string parameters (i.e. following a question mark at the end of the URI).    (KIC)
  • All of the above and more.    (KID)

I side with the first and third solutions. Jonathan thinks it should be the second.    (KIE)

Fragment Address    (KIF)

Pros:    (KIG)

  • These extended capabilities seem to belong here semantically. Purple Numbers are an obvious example of this. XPointer is another.    (KIH)
  • The URIs will be bookmarkable as the user manipulates the document from the HyperScope. We can do this, because we can change the fragment identifier from within JavaScript. We can’t do the same with any other part of the URI.    (KII)

Cons:    (KIJ)

  • These URIs cannot be used for a server-side only solution, because HTTP does not pass the fragment identifier to web servers.    (KIK)

Path or Query String    (KIL)

Pros:    (KIM)

  • Can be used for client-only or server-only solutions, or anywhere in between.    (KIN)

Cons:    (KIO)

  • You’re still left with the problem of a standard addressing syntax that doesn’t interfere with any other kind of addressing. For example, if you’re going to use a query parameter, what do you call it? Granted, if you namespace it correctly, the likelihood of namespace clash is tiny, but it’s still there.    (KIP)
  • No one’s building a server-side only solution right now.    (KIQ)

Why Limit Yourself?    (KIR)

This is ultimately my argument: Go with the first syntax for now, because it best suits our current needs, and don’t worry about the fact that it won’t satisfy all potential future needs, because nothing will. What’s important is that we standardize the conceptual semantics, and then standardize the syntax to the extent possible. In all likelihood, most people will be passing these links around by copying and pasting them anyway, so the actual link syntax isn’t completely critical.    (KIS)