a new approach for Guide
Contents
1. The operation described above is in fact part of the undoing the replacement operation if the user releases the button when the cursor is on the pop up menu the system replaces the new text by the original button If the user does not want to undo the replacement he must move the cursor off the pop up menu before releasing the middle mouse button Again the user does not need to be concerned with such detail if his intention is to undo the replacement he may just click the middle mouse button and see the text blink and be replaced by the original button It is opportune to note that the Unix Guide actually replaces the source of the button by the related destination text Often however it is desirable that the original button name appear at the head of the replacement e g when the button number is a section heading In the example described the word Index appears at the start of the replacement This is because the author has explicitly placed it there There is an option in Unix Guide to maintain the button in its original position after the replacement has been finished the replacement text is appended to the button 3 2 A detailed view on the OWL Guide We describe in a similar way how the OWL Guide system works when the user selects an expansion button In figure 6 we have an OWL Guide window The top line of the window is the OWL Guide menu the rest of the window is occupied by the current document The expansion buttons2. information After that we present in section 3 some detail on how the two implementations of the Guide Hypertext system 2 3 show the user the information related to one type of button the replace button Afterwards we propose two alternative ways sections 4 and 5 for Guide to present to the user the further information and we discuss the design problems concerned with these proposals Finally in section 6 we present the current stage of our work and comment about our future work This research is under supervision of Prof Peter J Brown in the Computing Laboratory at UKC and is being supported by CAPES Coordena o de Aperfei oamento de Pessoal de Nivel Superior Brasil under grant 0813 90 5 INB Every time we have writen he or his in this paper we refer to the user who can be either a woman or a man 2GUIDE is trademark of OWL International Inc 2 Some current approaches In this section we describe how several systems show to the user the further information related to the button the user selects We describe in each sub section the approach adopted and cite some of the systems that use it 2 1 A new window in a multiple windows scheme In the a new window in a multiple windows scheme the user normally has several windows at once and when the user selectes a button the system puts on the screen a new window containing the further information The new window coexists on the screen with the previous ones One window
3. Construction of a Seamless Information Environment EEE Computer 21 1 81 96 Jan 1988 Hypercard User s Guide Apple Computer Inc Addison Wesley Reading Mass USA 1987 D M Edwards and Hardman L Lost in Hyperspace Cognitive Mapping and Navigation in a Hypertext Enviroment In Hypertext 88 Papers York UK 1988 R N Akscyn D M McCracken and E A Yoder KMS A distributed hypermedia System for managing in organizations Communications of the ACM 7 820 835 Jul 1988 B Shneiderman and G Kearsley Hypertext Hands On Addison Wesley Reading MA USA 1989 M D G C Pimentel Current Work on Hypertext Seminar presented on 01 02 1991 in the Computing Laboratory University of Kent at Canterbury 1991 P J Brown Hypertext dreams and reality In H Brown editor Hypermedia Hypertext and Object oriented Databases pages 33 54 Chapman amp Hall London UK 1988 Barnes D Russel M and Wheadon M Developing and Adapting UNIX Tools for Workstations In EUUG Autumn 88 Conference Proceedings pages 321 333 1988 28
4. followed by a new window in a one window scheme In the a footnote resum followed by a new window in an one window scheme when the user selects a link the system shows firstly a resum of the target information This resum is typically put in the bottom of the screen The user then decides if he wants to follow the related link if he does a new window is put on the screen totally replacing the old one Hyperties 9 uses this approach 2 4 Replacement of the button in situ by the new information in the same window or Go to versus Come here In the replacement of the button in situ by the new information in the same window scheme the button selected by the user is replaced in situ by the related text we use the word text though in general the information could involve pictures It works in the following way the user selects a button using the 3Hypercard is a trademark of Apple Computer Inc mouse cursor and presses a mouse button the system highlights the text of the button normally one line long the user releases the mouse button and the system replaces the text of the button in situ by the related information perhaps several paragraphs long The main difference to the previous approaches is that the new information is brought to the user when he selects the button instead of the user s attention being directed to another window The Guide system uses this approach Actually this replace in sit
5. is opened for each link the user selects The user can normally see at least part of the information in the earlier windows and may select those windows to see their full content This is the approach of NoteCards 4 Intermedia 5 for example 2 2 A new window in an one window scheme or card scheme In the a new window in a one window scheme or card scheme the user always has one unique window related to his hyperdocument other windows may exist but have other related functions When the user selects a button a new window with the further information totally replaces the old one The user is not able to see the earlier information This is the approach of Hypercard 6 and the approach of Guide when used to simulate the card approach as in 7 A similar situation occurs with the KMS system 8 it permits one or two windows to be put on the screen simultaneously Since all the information in the system is kept in frames that have full screen size the following arrangement is necessary if one window is presented on the screen it corresponds to a whole frame if two windows are presented each one corresponds to the left half portion of a frame What occurs actually is that the frames that are presented in half size have their right half empty The system authors comment that the most usual size of frame is the half size one and that the full screen size is used only to keep very complex information 2 3 A footnote resum
6. operation The next steps are to e implement the highlighted replacement approach e evaluate our approaches by tests with users e observe users and evaluate the suggestions they give about new alternatives We are also interested in surveying the applications that are already using Guide and identifying where the proposed suggestions of this paper are most relevant Acknowledgements We acknowledge Professor Peter J Brown for supervision CAPES for sponsorship and the SCE ICMSC USP and the Computing Laboratory UKC for support provided 10 A Commented figures The current Unix Guide approach Quit New Oeovnrsiun Save Sieck edit Find Author rm rmdir commands that remove unlink files syntax rm fri file Example DESCRIPTION More OPTIONS More ERROR MESSAGES More Index Figure 1 Example of a Unix Guide window The top line of the window is the Unix Guide menu and the rest of the screen is occupied by the current document Within this document replace buttons are indicated by the use of a bold font 11 Quit New Geovriin Save Sicck lt dit Find Author rm rmdir commands that remove unlink files syntax rm fri file Example DESCRIPTION More OPTIONS More ERROR MESSAGES More Figure 2 The user selects Index To select a button the user puts the mouse cursor over the bold font text and clicks the left mouse button the replace button text is highlighted using reverse
7. the mouse cursor is on the very bottom of the screen and not over the replacement text Even worse if the user wants to mantain the replacement he has to move the mouse cursor to a position within the replacement text before releasing the mouse button From the above discussion we feel that if the cursor is not over the replacement region when the previewing operation initiate something has to be done Among the options we have are e wait for the user to put the cursor over the replacement before permiting him to do anything else e move the cursor to a position over the replacement warping the mouse cursor e modify the way he have defined the previewing operation to eliminate the problem We probably are going to try all these alternatives and evaluate user reaction to each 5 The highlighted replacement approach The idea of this approach is to highlight the new information after the selection operation has been done The aim is to help the user to identify the replacement text after the replacement has been finished This the enquiry structure receives the name group in OWL s Guide approach does not conflict with the previewing one After usability tests have been done the results may indicate that both alternatives can be used at the same time To implement the highlight we can e use a stippled background over all the replacement text so the user can identify more easily the extent of the replacement e leave
8. video while the user presses the mouse button Quit New Geovriin Save Sicck dit Find Author rm rmdir commands that remove unlink files syntax rm fri file Example DESCRIPTION More OPTIONS More ERROR MESSAGES More iall demonstration of inc a true inc Index of technical UNIX terms Index of concepts Figure 3 The replacement text is highlighted When the user releases the mouse button the system replaces the original button by its associated replacement keeping the whole replacement highlighted for a while 12 guide Quit New Downsize Save Block edit Find Author rm rmdir commands that remove unlink files syntax rm fri file Example DESCRIPTION More OPTIONS Mord ERROR MESSAGES More INDEX NB this is simply a small demonstration of indexing capabilities rather than a true index Index of technical UNIX terms Index of concepts Figure 4 The replacement is finished Afterwards the text is shown in the normal way As we can see it is not easy to identify at this point what exactly has changed in the document information rm rmdir commands that remove unlink files syntax rm fri file Example DESCRIPTION More OPTIONS Mord ERROR MESSAGES More i aemonstration of inde bilities rather than a true ing Index of technical UNIX terms Index of concepts Figure 5 The replacement text is shown The user may highlight the portion of the document associate
9. 1 we have a Unix Guide window The top line of the window is the Unix Guide menu and the rest of the window is occupied by the current document Within this document replace buttons are indicated by the use of bold font The following steps occur when a user decides to select a replace button e the user puts the mouse cursor over the replace button in this example the user chooses the button Index in figure 1 e the user holds the left mouse button down and the system highlights using reverse video the text of the replace button figure 2 e the user releases the left mouse button the system replaces the text of the button by the new text Macintosh is a registered trademark of Apple Computer Inc gt Unix is a trademark of Bell Labs keeping the new text highlighted for a while figure 3 and afterwards showing the new text as ordinary text figure 4 The user does not need to notice all these steps all the time For instance if he just clicks the left mouse button he sees only the new text blink on the screen before it becomes ordinary text After the replacement text has become part of the document the user can verify its extent by pointing anywhere within the replacement and holding down the middle mouse button This operation highlights the portion of the text related to the replacement and at the same time shows the user inside a pop up menu the name of the button that generated the replacement figure 5
10. 7 Fourteenth Floor Los Angeles CA 90011 600 Atlantic Avenue 213 624 8305 Boston MA 02216 617 973 9772 You will need a passport size photograph and possibly a confirmed airline seat If you wantto stay in Japan for more than 90 days you will need special permission from local ward offices Once permission has been qranted vou are issued an Alien Figure 8 The systems inserts the new text and highlights it for a while using a light dashed line When the user releases the mouse button the system inserts the related text highligthing it for a while the cursor changes from crossed circle like amp to a square like O Guide Eile Edit Search Navigate Display Format Font Make Window F1 HELP I QUICK FACTS Travel Visas Canada United Kindom Germany and several others do not need visas to visit Japan so long as they do not stay for more than six months Americans and Australians however do need visas Visas either commercial or tourist can be obtained from the nearest Japanese Consulate 625 North Michigan Avenue 299 Park Avenue Chicago IL 60611 Eighteenth Floor 312 280 0400 New York NY 10171 212 371 8222 250 East First Street Federal Reserve Plaza Suite 1507 Fourteenth Floor Los Angeles CA 90011 600 Atlantic Avenue 213 624 6305 Boston MA 02210 617 973 9772 You will need a passport size photograph and possibly a confirmed airline seat If you want to
11. Showing the destination of hypertext links a new approach for Guide Maria da Gra a Campos Pimentel Computing Laboratory University of Kent at Canterbury U K SCE ICMSC Universidade de S o Paulo Brasil May 1 1992 Abstract All hypertext systems have a kind of button which can be selected interactively by the user to obtain further information This paper is concerned with how to show the user the further information when he selects a button We comment how several hypertext systems show this information describe in detail how the Guide system currently does it and propose two alternative new approaches the previewing operation and the highlighted replacement approach discussing their implementation Key words Hypertext User Interface Getting Lost Link Following 1 Introduction The aim of hypertext technology is to present information to a user in a fast and interactive way All hypertext systems have a kind of button which can be selected interactively by the user to obtain further information We say that there is a link between the button and the further information and we say that when the user selects the button he follows the link The reference 1 may be consulted to give an initial overview about hypertext systems The problem we are concerned with in this paper is how to show the user the further information when he selects a button Initially in section 2 we describe how different hypertext systems show this
12. a look in the replacements contents As the previous example the replacement is very bigger that the button Figure 16 The user sees our idea and selects it mips_ultrix3_xila out Quit New Down Up Save Block edit Find Author We now present our id our idea is to put the replacement in a separated window called After the button selectiq preview window while the user pw window called preview window while the user presses t holds the mouse button This e the button with the cursor inside the preview window we should help because he can see the replacement text in the normal way 3 ifthe user releg not only the extension of the t of the preview window we do no perform the replacement replacement but also its contents pose when the replacement must be done AFTER have had the previous example the replacement is very bigg Figure 17 the system shows the replacement in a preview window The first idea is to present the associated information in a pop up window while the user presses the mouse button In this case the user can not only see the information contents but also have idea about the size of the replacement text Afterwards if the user releases the mouse button when the cursor is within the preview window the text is inserted in the ordinary way if the user moves the cursor out of the preview window before releasing the mouse button the pop up window is removed and the replacement is not done 22 sun
13. acement is very difficult and the contents of the replacement itself explains the reason b Figure 15 worst example is replaced by this down The source button in this example is two words long while the related replacement is several lines long Also the source button is embedded in a paragraph In this case the whole window information below the selected button has changed The size of the replacement text was not easy to identify at all This can be argued to be poor authorship However even if the author is oriented to place his replace buttons in isolated paragraphs the problem of variable size of the replacement still occurs This problem is a cause of momentary getting lost situations while navigating in a Guide hyperdocument The next figures show some ideas to minimize the problem 21 Our first proposal the previewing operation approach mips_ultrix3_xlla out Quit New Down Up Save Siock edi Find Author We now present ouridea After the button selection we 1 put the replacement on a new window called preview window while the user presses the mouse button 2 if the user release the button with the cursor inside the preview window we remove the preview window and insert the replacement text in the normal way 3 ifthe user release the mouse button with the cursor out of the preview window we do no perform the replacement The user can with this alteration choose when the replacement must be done AFTER have had
14. button is maintained in its original place 4 2 The second alternative A alternative way is to show the replacement in the ordinary way but highlighted while the user selects the button To illustrate the idea let us suppose that the user is interested in the contents of the button More that follows the word OPTIONS in figure 18 What happens is e while the user presses the mouse button to select the replace button the system a presents the destination as ordinary text in the same position it will be when the selection is finished b highlights the destination text by putting a thin line arround the region as in figure 19 e if after seeing the destination region contents the user still wants to select the button he simply releases the mouse button the system removes the highlight and the text becomes ordinary e if after seeing the destination contents the user gives up the button selection he has only to move the mouse cursor out of the destination region and release the mouse button the system replaces the highlighted destination by the original source 4 3 The chosen alternative We have chosen the second alternative to implement the previewing operation because we think that the operation must be as similar as possible to the ordinary operation In this case nothing changes if the user does not withdraw from the selection the result of the previewing operation is the same as the normal operation what changes i
15. ch we call the previewing operation the key to this approach is to show the replacement contents while the user is selecting the button This approach must not affect the normal operation of showing the contents after the selection is finished The previewing operation has some parallels with the operation described in section 2 3 for the Hyperties system We have studied two alternatives for implementing the previewing operation and present them in the following sections 4 1 The first alternative One way of implementing the previewing operation is by showing the contents of the replacement text in a separate window while the user selects the replace button and waiting for the user to decide if he actually wants that text inserted in his document 10 This approach is illustrated below e the user puts the mouse cursor over the the button our idea in figure 16 and presses the mouse button e the system then presents the related information in a separate window as shown in figure 17 e if after seeing the destination contents the user decides to insert it as a normal replacement he simply releases the mouse button the system removes the preview window and inserts the replacement in the normal Guide way e if after seeing the destination contents the user gives up the button selection he has only to put the mouse cursor out of the destination region and release the mouse button the system removes the preview window and the original
16. d with that replacement he places the cursor anywhere in the replacement and clicks the middle mouse button causing a highlight as shown above This is in fact part of the undo operation 13 The current OWL Guide approach File Guide Edit Search Navigate Display Format Font Make Window F1 HELP I QUICK FACTS Travel Visas Canada United Kindom Germany and several others do not need visas to visit Japan so long as they do not stay for more than six months Americans and Australians however do need visas Visas either commercial or tourist can be obtained from the nearest Japanese Consulate ou will need a passport size photograph and possibly a confirmed airline seat If you wantto stay in Japan for more than 90 days you will need special permission from local ward offices Once permission has been granted you are issued an Alien Registration Card which must be carried with you at all times and surrendered when you leave the country Figure 6 Example of an OWL Guide window t C This and the next three figures correspond to the OWL Guide system We show how the selection of a expansion button occurs In this case the user sees the expansion button Japanese Consulate in bold font in the document area when over ordinary text the cursor shape is arrow like I QUICK FACTS Travel Visas Canada United Kindom Germany and several others do not need visas to visit Japan so long as they
17. d_sunosd_xila out Quit New GevrUp Lnbewniniip Save Siock ed Find Author rm rmdir commands that remove unlink files syntax rm fri file Example DESCRIPTION More OPTIONS More ERROR MESSAGES More Index Figure 18 More following OPTIONS before the selection sund_sunos4d_xila out Quit New Gevrniip Lnbewrnviniip Save Sieck ed Find Author rm rmdir commands that remove unlink files syntax rm fri file Example DESCRIPTION More OPTIONS The following options are available force deletion even if the file has no write permission interactively ask the user to confirm each removal If you are a beginner More is used when the file s to be deleted are directories It removes all the files within each directory and then recursively does the same to each sub directory within the directory thus deleting the entire tree of files that has the given directory as its root ERROR MESSAGES More Figure 19 More following OPTIONS during the selection The second idea is to insert the associated replacement in the final position and hightlight it while the user presses the mouse button If the user releases the mouse button when the cursor is within the preview window the hightlight is removed if the user moves the cursor out of the highlighted area before releasing the mouse button the replacement is removed The advantage of the second idea chosen as the previewing operation definition over the fi
18. do not stay for more than six months Americans and Australians however do need visas Visas either commercial or tourist can be obtained from the nearest Japanese Consulate ou will need a passport size photograph and possibly a confirmed airline seat If you wantto stay in Japan for more than 90 days you will need special permission from local ward offices Once permission has been granted you are issued an Alien Registration Card which must be carried with you at all times and surrendered when you leave the country Figure 7 The user selects Japanese Consulate Guide l Eile Edit Search Navigate Display Format Font Make Window F1 HELP C The system highligths the button name using a light dashed line while the user presses the mouse button over the expansion button name the cursor shape changes from arrow like N to crossed circle like 14 Guide Eile Edit Search Navigate Display Format Font Make Window F1 HELP I QUICK FACTS Travel Visas Canada United Kindom Germany and several others do not need visas to visit Japan so long as they do not stay for more than six months Americans and Australians however do need visas Visas either commercial or tourist can be obtained from the nearest Japanese Consulate 525 North Michigan Avenue 299 Park Avenue Chicago IL 60611 Eighteenth Floor 312 280 0400 New ork NY 10171 212 371 8222 250 East First Street Federal Reserve Plaza Suite 150
19. e b Figure 12 Scheme is replaced by The done The situation now is different The one word source of the replacement is substituted by a full paragraph The window contents has changed a lot because some previously existing information has been moved off the screen However the replacement contents is still identificable because it is formed by a full isolated paragraph 18 Quit New Down Up Save 8icck edi Find Author The next examples show situations where the replace button is no more isolated in one line but instead they are embedded in one several lines long paragraph Initially we have the situation where the replace button is the single word Guide and the associated replacement is the hyphenated word Unix Guide Here is the example Guide Is very easy to the user to identify the replacement because its size is very closed with the size of the original button and the replacement does not cause a hig alteration neither in the paragraph nor in the window lay out The next example is a bit more complex and we explain the reason after the button Here is the example new information We will notice that the identification of the extension of the replacement is not so easy as before This is because 1 the text is fully embebed in one bigger paragraph and 2 the extension of the replacement is very different of the extension of the original button The source of the replacement is the couple of words new Quit New Dow
20. ected and if the user simply clicks the mouse button the replacement will be undone according to the current definition of the previewing operation A solution has to be found as for instance to move the mouse automaticaly over the replacement area grabbing the cursor or to redefine the previewing operation We have finished the description of the previewing operation approach and the next figures describe the highlighted replacement approach 25 Our second proposal the highlighted replacement approach The second idea we have to help the user in his navigation is to highlight the new information after the selection operation has been done Before presenting our approach we present the current approach in the figures in this page sund_sunosd_xila out 9 Quit New Down Up LnDown LnU edit Find WINDOWS Guide must be run under a window manager Most window managers create a new window for Guide when it starts The size of the window can be changed while Guide is running and Guide will reformat the display automatically when this happens OPTIONS SIGNALS PREPROCESSOR Guide can have a preprocessor incorporated into it Guide is a presentation tool and the role of a preprocessor is to extract the material to be presented this may for example come from a database The standard preprocessor issued within Guide is an interface to two sets of information 1 some public Guide source files 2 the UNIX manual pages This preproc
21. ere is no indication to the user what exactly is the new text In some applications the highlight of this information could be useful Two possible ways of highlighting the new information are presented in the next figures 26 sun4_sunos4_x11la out H 2 Quit New Down Up LnDownsLnUp Save 8ioeck di Find Author WINDOWS Guide must be run under a window manager Most window managers create a new window for Guide when it starts The size of the window can be changed while Guide is running and Guide will reformat the display automatically when this happens OPTIONS Guide can have a preprocessor incorporated into it Guide is a presentation tool and the role of a preprocessor is to extract the material to be presented this may for example come from a database The standard preprocessor issued within Guide is an interface to two sets of information 1 some public PREPROCESSOR Figure 24 Highlighting the new information using a stippled background sund_sunosd_xila out P Quit New Down Up LnDown LnUp Save 8ieck dit Find Author WINDOWS Guide must be run under a window manager Most window managers create a new window for Guide when it starts The size of the window can be changed while Guide is running and Guide will reformat the display automatically when this happens OPTIONS SIGNALS If Guide receives an EMT signal it treats this as a request to re focus the screen by using the Guide Find command In this case the f
22. essor looks at each filename that the user requests as a Guide source for loading We will first cover case 1 above i e when the filename is rot to be treated as a manual page Figure 22 Situation before the selection of the button SIGNAL sund_sunosd_xila out amp Quit New Down Up LnDown LnUp Save 8iock edit WINDOWS Guide must be run under a window manager Most window managers create a new window for Guide when it starts The size of the window can be changed while Guide is running and Guide will reformat the display automatically when this happens OPTIONS SIGNALS If Guide receives an EMT signal it treats this as a request to re focus the screen by using the Guide Find command In this case the file tmp guidefindN where N is the PID of Guide should contain a string that looks like a f or b option to Guide e g fcopy to find the string copy Note that there should not be a newline at the end of this file unless the sought string is to end with a newline PREPROCESSOR Guide can have a preprocessor incorporated into it Guide is a presentation tool and the role of a preprocessor is to extract the material to be presented this may for example come from a database The standard preprocessor issued within Guide is an interface to two sets of information 1 some public Figure 23 Situation after the selection of SIGNAL The result of the selection of the button SIGNAL in figure 22 is shown in figure 23 Th
23. he button selection The next example is the worst of all worst example In this case the identification of the replacement is very difficult and the contents of the replacement itself explains the reason We now present our idea is to put the replacement in a separated window called preview window while the user holds the mouse button This should help because he can see not only the extension of the replacement but also its contents Quit New Down Up Save Sicck edi Find Author The next example is a bit more complex and we explain the reason after the button Here is the example new information is obtained in situ after the button selection We will notice that the identification of the extension of the replacement is not so easy as before This is because 1 the text is fully embebed in one bigger paragraph and 2 the extension of the replacement is very different of the extension of the original button The source of the replacement is the couple of words new information is replaced by the one line size sentence new information is obtained in situ after the button selection The next example is the worst of all this is the worst example because 1 the button is embedded in one big paragraph 2 the replace button has a small size while its replacement is several lines long and 3 the whole window lay out is changed because the contents bellow the related paragraph is moved down In this case the identification of the repl
24. icating that there is replacement in that position It would not indicate however how many levels of replacements have occurred Among the alternative ways of implementing this approach we must decide e which kind of highlight to use stippled background dashed line continuous line blinking line etc e how to indicate that a replacement extends outside the current window e whether the user can deactivate the showing of the highlighting of any replacement permitting optional viewing of each highlight e whether the user can deactivate the showing of all highlights e whether the user can ask the system to show where the earlier replacements are For instance the system can disable the current highlight and show the previous one This is a similar approach to that existing in the undoing of the replacement operation in Unix Guide e whether to perform the highlight of the previous level after executing an undo operation 6 Current and further work To evaluate our proposals we are working with the Unix version of the Guide hypertext system We are now working in the implementation of the previewing operation We have e changed the link selection operation to preview the destination region of replace buttons e implemented the highlight of the destination region during the previewing operation by drawing a line around the region We are now finishing the implementation of the scrolling operation during the previewing
25. icck edi Find Author The next example is a bit different The source of the replacement the button Example is also an single word isolated in one line but the associated replacement is an full line Examples of hypertext are Guide NoteCards Intermedia KMS and HyperCard After to select the above button the user obtains the replacement Examples of hypertext are Guide NoteCards Intermedia KMS and HyperCard Note that both the button and the replacement are in one isolated paragraph After the replacment he user has a bigger change in the window than in the former example but it is not a problem once he waits a replacement be done and because the single word is replaced by the full line he can easily identify what was exactly the change b Figure 11 Examples is replaced by Examples Hypercard In this case the extension of the replacement is not as easy to identify as before mainly because the size of replacement is very different However the result is still clear because both source and replacement occupy an one line isolated paragraph 17 The next example is more complex The source of the replacement the word Scheme is isolated in one paragraph as in the former example but the associated example is now a full paragraph composed by several lines Scheme After selecting the above button the user obtains a new paragraph which contents is The scheme of replacing in situ the original button by its as
26. ile tmp guidefindN where N is the PID of Guide should contain a string that looks like a f or b option to Guide e g fcopy to find the string copy Note that there should not be a newline at the end of this file unless the sought string is to end with a newline PREPROCESSOR Guide can have a preprocessor incorporated into it Guide is a presentation tool and the role of a preprocessor is to extract the material to be presented this may for example come from a database The standard preprocessor issued within Guide is an interface to two sets of information 1 some public Figure 25 Highlighting the new information using a line around the text These are two possible ways of highlighting the new information We prefer the second one 27 References 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 J Conklin Hypertext an introduction and survey IEEE Computer 20 9 17 41 Sep 1987 Also a extended version in A Survey of Hypertext MCC STP 356 86 Austin Tx 1987 P J Brown A Hypertext System for UNIX Computing Systems USENIX 2 1 37 53 1989 GUIDE 3 0 user manual Office Workstations Ltd Bellevue WA USA 1988 FA Halasz Reflections on NoteCards Seven issues for the next generation of hypermedia systems Communications of the ACM 31 836 852 Jul 1988 Nicole Yankelovich Bernard J Haan Norman Meyrowitz and Steven M Drucker Intermedia The Concept and the
27. in this example are indicated by the use of bold font The OWL Guide system works with a one button mouse and uses the approach of changing the cursor shape to indicate to the user the current context whether the text under the cursor is ordinary text or an expansion button for instance but this feature is not shown in our figures When the cursor is over ordinary text its shape is arrow like N When a user decides to select an expansion button he e puts the mouse cursor over the expansion button in this example Japanese Consulate in figure 6 will be selected The cursor shape changes from arrow like N to crossed circle like amp e holds the mouse button and the system highlights using a light dashed line the text of the replace button figure 7 e releases the mouse button the system inserts the new text showing it highlighted for a while as Unix Guide does but using the light dashed line instead of reverse video figure 8 and afterwards showing it as ordinary text figure 9 The cursor changes from crossed circle like to square like As in Unix Guide the user does not need to notice all these steps all the time if he just clicks the mouse button he sees the new text being inserted in the document as ordinary text and a light dashed line surrounding the new text blinks on the screen for a while To verify the extent of the new text after an expansion button selection the user points anywhere within the re
28. n Up Save Block edit Find Author The next examples show situations where the replace button is no more isolated in one line but instead they are embedded in one several lines long paragraph Initially we have the situation where the replace button is the single word Guide and the associated replacement is the hyphenated word Unix Guide Here is the example Unix Guide Is very easy to the user to identify the replacement because its size is very closed with the size of the original button and the replacement does not cause a big alteration neither in the paragraph nor in the window lay out The next example is a bit more complex and we explain the reason after the button Here is the example new information We will notice that the identification of the extension of the replacement is not so easy as before This is because 1 the text is fully embebed in one bigger paragraph and 2 the extension of the replacement is very different of the extension of the original button The source of the replacement is the couple of words new b Figure 13 Guide is replaced by Unix Guide In this and the next two examples the source button is embedded within a paragraph This makes the replacement harder to identify than in the previous examples In this case however as the size of both source and replacement text are nearly the same the window content has not changed very much and the user is able to identify the result after some obse
29. n the replacement is huge and he should be given an idea of its size One option is to perform continuous scrolling directed by moving the cursor up and down in a similar approach to vdiff 12 or Macintosh applications that do scrolling using the hand cursor While the user presses the left mouse button during the previewing operation the middle mouse button can be used to cause scrolling the movement of the mouse up and down controls the direction and speed of the scrolling Vdiff is a graphic version of the diff Unix utility available from UKC which provides continuous scroll of the document contents in a window while the user moves the mouse cursor Also it can be very helpful to indicate some numerical proportion like 10 shown so the user can estimate the size of the entire replacement 4 3 2 Problem replacement smaller than the source When we described the preview operation we said that the user has to move the cursor out of the destination region before releasing the mouse if he does not want the replacement to be done In other words we assumed that the mouse cursor is initially over the destination region during the preview However the mouse cursor might be initially outside the replacement region This happens in situations where the resulting replacement is smaller than the source a case in point is when the selected button is embedded within an enquiry and the associated replacement is smaller than the e
30. nquiry source region The folowing figures illustrates this case In figure 20 all the replace buttons which are the items numbered from 1 to 11 are embedded within an enquiry According to the definition of the enquiry structure the result of the selection of an embedded button is the replacement of the enquiry region by the replacement text associated to the selected button This means that the source of the replace button is not only the button itself but also all the region defined by the enquiry structure In the example the result of the selection of the button 11 Simple animation is shown in figure 21 the replacement text is presented highlighted so one can compare the size of the enquiry with the size of the replacement Situations like this are frequently found in the Locator system The problem in situations like the one exemplified is that the mouse cursor is not over the replacement region when the replacement is highlighted According to the definition of the previewing operation the user has to move the mouse cursor out of the replacement region if he wants to undo the replacement This suposes that the cursor is over the replacement area text when the previewing is initiated As shown by the example this is not always true If we mantain the definition of the operation the result of releasing the mouse button in the example is to undo the replacement operation since when the replacement button 11 Simple animation is selected
31. placement and holds down the mouse button This operation draws the light dashed line around the new text but does not show the button name at same time as Unix Guide does This operation is as in Unix Guide part of the undoing the replacement operation if the user releases the button the system replaces the new text by the original button if the user does not want to undo the replacement he must move the cursor off the highlighted area before releasing the mouse button Again the user does not need to be concerned with such detail if his intention is to undo the replacement he just clicks the mouse button As with Unix Guide OWL Guide actually replaces the source of the button by the related destination text and there is an option to keep the button in its original position after the replacement has been finished 3 3 One possible problem We present in this section six pairs of figures that can help us to identify a kind of getting lost problem that can occur when using Guide The examples are based on the Unix Guide but similar situations occur when using the OWL Guide Each pair of figures corresponds to a button selection Part a of the figure shows the button before the selection and part b shows the result after the selection Table 1 outlines what the text of the buttons and the text of the replacements are figure replace button replacement text no figure part a figure part b 10 word replacement 11 Example Example
32. rst is that the replacement is in the correct position if the user does not withdraw from the selection 23 The next two figures illustrate one problem with the definition of the previewing operation that always occurs when the replacement area is smaller than the source area The buttons in the figure below are embedeed within an enquiry As a result the selection of a button results on the replacement of all the enquiry source in this case all the buttons by the replacement text of the selected button sund_sunosd_xila out Quit New DovrvUp Lnbeowrvinlip Save Siock edit Find Next Author SOME USES OF GUIDE BUTTONS The purpose of this demonstration is to give Guide authors some idea of the many possible uses of Guide s usage buttons and glossary buttons 1 Extracting information from the environment 2 Launching other programs 3 Making the replacement of buttons inter depend 4 Making buttons perform loading and or searching 5 Performing Guide actions 6 Dynamic updating of Guide s material by another program 7 Spelling check of this document 8 Spelling check of a file specified by the user 9 Including pictures in a document 10 Getting the user to supply parameters 11 Simple animation Figure 20 The buttons 11 Simple animation will be previewed As an example when the user selects the button 11 Simple animation the mouse cursor is on the bottom of the screen The replacement text associated
33. rvation 19 Quit New Down Up Save Block edit Find Author The next example is a bit more complex and we explain the reason after the button Here is the example new information We will notice that the identification of the extension of the replacement is not so easy as before This is because 1 the text is fully embebed in one bigger paragraph and 2 the extension of the replacement is very different of the extension of the original button The source of the replacement is the couple of words new information is replaced by the one line size sentence new information is obtained in situ after the button selection The next example is the worst of all worst example In this case the identification of the replacement is very difficult and the contents of the replacement itself explains the reason We now present ouridea After the button selection we 1 put the replacement on a new window called preview Quit New Down Up Save Block edit Find Author The next example is a bit more complex and we explain the reason after the button Here is the example new information is obtained in situ after the button selection We will notice that the identification of the extension of the replacement is not so easy as before This is because 1 the text is fully embebed in one bigger paragraph and 2 the extension of the replacement is very different of the extension of the original button The source of the replacement is the couple of word
34. s Hypercard 12 Scheme The done 13 Guide Unix Guide 14 new information new selection 15 worst example this down Table 1 Examples of replacements in Guide In the first three pairs of figures the replace button was isolated in a line In the last three pairs the button was embedded in a paragraph We comment now on the difficulty of identifying the replacement text after the selection has been done e we can see easily in figure 10 exactly what the replacement text is because it is one isolated word e in the figure 11 as the replacement is composed of only few words its extent is also easy to visualise e in figure 12 the insertion of the paragraph caused the window contents under the button to move down with the result that it is not so easy to identify the extent of the replacement text e the situation becomes worse for the next three sets of figures 13 to 15 because a big replacement is embedded in a long paragraph It could be said that it is bad authorship to create big destination regions or to embed buttons within long paragraphs perhaps this is true in most situations but it does occur particularly if the hyperdocument is created automatically from existing paper based documents or even linear computer based documents a quite common situation in practice 4 The previewing operation To combat the problem of identifying the destination region we have designed and implemented a new approach whi
35. s new information is replaced by the one line size sentence new information is obtained in situ after the button selection The next example is the worst of all worst example In this case the identification of the replacement is very dificult and the contents of the replacement itself explains the reason we now present our idea After the button selection we 1 put the replacement on a new window called preview b Figure 14 new information is replaced by new selection The situation in this example is a bit different The window layout has not changed very much after the replacement has been finished because the replacement is shorter than one line However it was very much bigger that the original button several words instead of only two words which caused the user to be forced to look very closely to identify the changes 20 The next example is a bit more complex and we explain the reason after the button Here is the example new information is obtained in situ after the button selection We will notice that the identification of the extension of the replacement is not so easy as before This is because 1 the text is fully embebed in one bigger paragraph and 2 the extension of the replacement is very different of the extension of the original button The source of the replacement is the couple of words new information is replaced by the one line size sentence new information is obtained in situ after t
36. s only the way in which the button selection is done The direct advantages of this proposal are e We can highlight the destination region of the link while previewing it reducing the difficulty of identifying what the new information is e This is a better approach than the current one if the user wants to have a look at that content before it definitively replaces the original button Brown mentions in 11 that the user of the Locator system a Guide application concerned with repair and maintenance would like to have this option e The user can be more curious about navigating in the database any undesired destination is easily undone e This operation can be easily implemented in other hypertext systems other than Guide as we use the moment of selection to perform the previewing operation most existing systems can implement this proposal simply by changing the moment of selection to while the user presses the mouse button instead of after he does it e The previewing operation can be made an optional feature of existing systems this is achieved by performing the operation only if the user holds the button on for a while if he just clicks the mouse this means that he does not want the previewing operation done 4 3 1 Problem replacement does not fit on the window A problem exists it is a difficult situation if the replacement does not totally fit in the window This is an important case since the user is most confused whe
37. shown highlighted in the next figure is not long enough to cause the mouse cursor being over the replacement when the user selects the button 24 According to the previewing operation definition if the user wants the replacement of a button to be mantained he simply releases the mouse button otherwise he has to move the mouse cursor off the replacement area before releasing the button Also if the user just clicks the mouse button the replacement is to be mantained sund_sunosd_xila out Quit New Deovr Up Lnbeowrvinlip Save Siock edit Find Nest Author SOME USES OF GUIDE BUTTONS The purpose of this demonstration is to give Guide authors some idea of the many possible uses of Guide s usage buttons and glossary buttons 1 SIMPLE ANIMATION Here each picture in the animation sequence is a button and the replacement of one picture button is the next The last in the sequence is an action button that undoes back to the first picture this creating a cycle Continually select the picture to proceed through the animation G ey The following buttons automate the process of proceeding through the pictures one by one Start the continuous animation Stop the animation it stops at the start of the next cycle there may be a short delay before it stops Figure 21 The previewing of the button 11 Simple animation As this example illustrates the mouse cursor may be outside the replacement region when a button is sel
38. sociated information may in some situations confuse the user This is because the reader may have no idea about the extension of the replacement and he needs to find the replacement extension after it has been done We can see that the insertion of a paragraph of a different size caused the contents bellow it be moved down and the result is a window with a very different lay out The next examples show situations where the replace button is no more isolated in one line Quit New Down Up Save Sicck edi Find Author The next example is more complex The source of the replacement the word Scheme is isolated in one paragraph as in the former example but the associated example is now a full paragraph composed by several lines The scheme of replacing in situ the original button by its associated information may in some situations confuse the user This is because the reader may have no idea about the extension of the replacement and he needs to find the replacement extension after it has been done After selecting the above button the user obtains a new paragraph which contents is The scheme of replacing in situ the original button by its associated information may in some situations confuse the user This is because the reader may have no idea about the extension of the replacement and he needs to find the replacement extension after it has been done We can see that the insertion of a paragraph of a different size caused th
39. source and destination of the link The word bellow is a Guide replace button In the example it is a word isolated in one line replacement If the user selects the above word it will be replaced by a new single word replacement The new replacement is easily identified by the user because the it substitutes a word that was isolated in one line and the replacement itself is also a word b Figure 10 word is replaced by replacement The button word in the top figure was selected and replaced by the word replacement shown in the bottom figure We can easily appreciate the change since both source and replacement are nearly of the same size and are also isolated in one paragraph 16 guide Quit New Down Up Save Sicck edi Find Author The next example is a bit different The source of the replacement the button Example is also an single word isolated in one line but the associated replacement is an full line Example After to select the above button the user obtains the replacement Examples of hypertext are Guide NoteCards Intermedia KMS and HyperCard Note that both the button and the replacement are in one isolated paragraph After the replacment he user has a bigger change in the window than in the former example but it is not a problem once he waits a replacement be done and because the single word is replaced by the full line he can easily identify what was exactly the change Quit New Down Up Save S
40. stay in Japan for more than 90 days you will need special permission from local ward offices Once permission has been qranted vou are issued an Alien Figure 9 The new text is shown as ordinary text The new text is shown in the ordinary way at the end of the operation The next figures present six pairs of windows that show a kind of getting lost problem that can occur when using Guide The examples are based on Unix Guide but similar situations occur when using OWL Guide 15 Some situations where it can be difficult to identify the destination region Quit New Downiip Save Sicck edi Find Author In this section we shows several examples of Guide replace buttons and its replacements The aim is illustrate how it works today Initially we present simple example we is very easy to identify the source and destination of the link The word bellow is a Guide replace button In the example it is a word isolated in one line word If the user selects the above word it will be replaced by a new single word replacement The new replacement is easily identified by the user because the it substitutes a word that was isolated in one line and the replacement itself is also a word Quit New Down iip Save Sicck edi Find Author In this section we shows several examples of Guide replace buttons and its replacements The aim is illustrate how it works today Initially we present simple example we is very easy to identify the
41. the line that surrounds the replacement text in the previewing operation e change that line for a dashed line indicating the distinct context The next figures illustrate this idea Figure 22 presents a Unix Guide window with the replace buttons OPTIONS and SIGNALS If no highlight is used after a selection has been done the result of the selection of the button SIGNALS is presented in figure 23 If a stippled background over the new information is used the result is like that shown in figure 24 Figure 25 presents the result of highlighting the new text using the same line used in the previewing operation The main advantage of this approach is that the user is shown the extent of the replacement all the time We believe this can help not only in a short term navigation but also in a very long one One disadvantage it that the screen can become awful if there are lots of little replacement texts shown Another disadvantage is that the screen contents do not reflect the paper contents because the highlights are not intended to be saved One question raises what occurs if the selected button is inside a highlighted region We think that the former highlight must be suppressed so that only the last level of replacement is indicated at one time If the original button was not inside such a region a new level of replacement is indicated at this time The result is that the document can have several portions that are highlighted each portion ind
42. u approach of Guide is more general since any region within the current window rather than just a button can be replaced If the region is the whole window then Guide can simulate the card approach hence the above reference to Guide under card schemes The Guide system has in fact several types of button The situation described above occurs when the selected button is a replace button There are some other types of button in Guide but we do not discuss them in this paper In the rest of this paper we refer to figures that are in appendix A The appendix is annotated so one can read the appendix as an whole section and have a resum of the discussion in this paper 3 How Guide works today The Guide system has currently two distinct versions the OWL Guide 3 0 the system that runs on PC like and Macintosh computers and is available from OWL Ltd and the Unix Guide which runs on workstations and is available from the Computing Laboratory at the University of Kent at Canterbury The replace button structure is the name in the Unix Guide version the corresponding structure in the OWL Guide is called expansion button We focus in this section on both Guide versions approaches to showing the information associated with a replace button and give a detailed view on how it works 3 1 A detailed view on Unix Guide We describe in detail how the replacement is currently done when the user selects a Unix Guide replace button In figure
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