16 Mar 1995 - Preliminary Information

SpHyDir Project Objectives

Produce better quality HTML documents for the World Wide Web while exposing the author to as little HTML syntax as possible.
Simplify the construction of large documents composed of many small, structurally interrelated hypertext files.
Automatically generate navigational links, copyright notices, and other standard features at the beginning or end of every document.
Provide a core set of functions, then allow the user to add features by coding simple external Rexx functions.
Generate documents that can be published both on the network (in HTML format through the World Wide Web) and in hypertext file format (as INF files viewed under Windows or OS/2).
Simplify the development of Web "forms." In particular, provide direct support that simplifies Rexx-based query programs running under GoServe 2.0 (the free IBM Gopher/Web server for OS/2), although the forms can be used with any CGI program running on other servers.

SpHyDir is the Structured Professional Hypertext Directory Manger. It is Structured because it views a Web not as a collection of ASCII files with format instructions, but rather as a collection of documents with chapters, sections, and subsections. It is Professional because it aims to manage a large block of material and not to help the novice design a single home page. It is Hypertext because it helps to manage links between documents, structure across documents, and links to remote information sources. It is a Directory manager because it simplifies the maintenance of logical documents composed of many small HTML files in the same directory.

SpHyDir is also an experiment in using IBM's Workplace interface within an application program. Although IBM originally that the Workplace model be used to handle application data objects as well as System components, there are only a few examples of this use and they have not been entirely successful. Whenever possible, SpHyDir follows the Workplace model to decide how things should be done and how they should look. This makes SpHyDir a truly "native" OS/2 program.

SpHyDir does not claim to understand or process all "valid" Web documents. There is a widely held view that the HTML language in which Web documents are expressed is intended to provide formatting information. SpHyDir tries to use it to extract document structure. In particular, SpHyDir assumes that a "heading" introduces a chapter, section, or subsection. When someone uses heading tags just to get big letters, SpHyDir will make all sorts of wrong assumptions. This is not a bug and it is unlikely to ever be changed. SpHyDir approaches the question of Web documents with an entirely different philosophy.

The Web provides universal access to sophisticated information from all computers on the Internet. Of necessity, this involves some compromise in function and speed. There are also native hypertext formats (HLP, INF) that provide many of the same structural features, faster local performance, and extra features such as keyword search. SpHyDir also generates IPF source files that can be compiled into OS/2 HLP files and INF files. The primary purpose of this feature was to provide a version of this document that could double as HLP to the SpHyDir program.

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This document generated by SpHyDir another fine product of PC Lube and Tune.