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An Overview of Chimera's Hypermedia Concepts

Chimera is based on a flexible set of hypermedia concepts: viewers, objects, views, anchors, links, attributes, clients, and hyperwebs. These concepts allow an application's hypermedia needs to be easily modeled and then implemented by making the appropriate calls on Chimera's application program interface (API). In fact, the primary task of integrating an application with Chimera is making the appropriate API calls to create persistent instances of these concepts in a Chimera hyperweb. This section of the Chimera website is devoted to explaining Chimera's concepts and how they allow an application to take advantage of Chimera's hypermedia services. A summary of the concepts appears below with links leading to a more detailed discussion of each concept.

Viewers Viewers are used to display and manipulate information. Example viewers include image applications, database programs, and word processors.

Objects Object is a generic term for application-specific information. This information can be persistent or transient. Objects can be practically anything including widgets within an application window, a file of image data, or a reference to a large database. Composite objects are also supported.

Views Views are the result of combining a viewer with a particular object. It is typically realized by the viewer creating a graphical depiction of a particular object. For example, the display of a GIF image is a view produced by a GIF viewer after processing a GIF image file.

Anchors Anchors denote regions of interest within a view. These regions are typically selectable and can both initiate and receive link traversal events. Anchors can be either view-specific (anchors made possible by application-specific features of the viewer displaying the view) and view-independent (anchors which can be displayed by any viewer displaying the view).

Links Links are sets of anchors. Since anchors are associated with views and objects at a conceptual level, links can easily relate information stored in different formats and accessed by different applications. In this manner, Chimera directly supports the heterogeneity common in today's modern computing environments.

Attributes All of the previous concepts can have one or more attributes associated with them. An attribute is defined by its name and value. An example attribute is ("anchor-x-y", "20,30").

Clients Clients are applications which make use of Chimera's hypermedia services. Clients contain contain one or more viewers and manage their access to the Chimera server. In addition, when a client receives an event from the Chimera server, it is responsible for routing the event to the appropriate viewer.

Hyperwebs A hyperweb is a persistent network of Chimera's hypermedia concepts along with their attributes. Hyperwebs are stored within the document space of a WWW server allowing them to be referenced and accessed via URLs. Hyperwebs can be hierarchically composed.

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Viewers	Viewers are used to display and manipulate information. Example viewers include image applications, database programs, and word processors.
Objects	Object is a generic term for application-specific information. This information can be persistent or transient. Objects can be practically anything including widgets within an application window, a file of image data, or a reference to a large database. Composite objects are also supported.
Views	Views are the result of combining a viewer with a particular object. It is typically realized by the viewer creating a graphical depiction of a particular object. For example, the display of a GIF image is a view produced by a GIF viewer after processing a GIF image file.
Anchors	Anchors denote regions of interest within a view. These regions are typically selectable and can both initiate and receive link traversal events. Anchors can be either view-specific (anchors made possible by application-specific features of the viewer displaying the view) and view-independent (anchors which can be displayed by any viewer displaying the view).
Links	Links are sets of anchors. Since anchors are associated with views and objects at a conceptual level, links can easily relate information stored in different formats and accessed by different applications. In this manner, Chimera directly supports the heterogeneity common in today's modern computing environments.
Attributes	All of the previous concepts can have one or more attributes associated with them. An attribute is defined by its name and value. An example attribute is ("anchor-x-y", "20,30").
Clients	Clients are applications which make use of Chimera's hypermedia services. Clients contain contain one or more viewers and manage their access to the Chimera server. In addition, when a client receives an event from the Chimera server, it is responsible for routing the event to the appropriate viewer.
Hyperwebs	A hyperweb is a persistent network of Chimera's hypermedia concepts along with their attributes. Hyperwebs are stored within the document space of a WWW server allowing them to be referenced and accessed via URLs. Hyperwebs can be hierarchically composed.