README 27.Jul.95
Keith Andrews
Harmony is Copyright (c) by IICM, see the full COPYRIGHT notice for
conditions of use.
Harmony -- The Unix/X11 Client for Hyper-G
------------------------------------------
Thank you for your interest in Harmony. Harmony is the Unix/X11
client for Hyper-G, the first "second generation", publicly available,
networked hypermedia information system running over the
Internet. Hyper-G integrates hyperlinking, hierarchical structuring,
sophisticated search, and access control facilities into one single
system, and is interoperable with other network information tools like
Gopher and WWW. Hyper-G is being developed jointly by the Institute
for Information Processing and Computer Supported New Media (IICM) of
Graz University of Technology, Austria and the Institute for
HyperMedia Systems (IHM) of JOANNEUM RESEARCH, Graz, Austria.
The latest release of Harmony is available by anonymous ftp from:
ftp://ftp.iicm.tu-graz.ac.at/pub/Hyper-G/Harmony
The Harmony FAQ (Frequently Answered Questions) contains pointers to
further information about Harmony and Hyper-G and an up-to-date list
of FTP mirror sites. It is available at:
ftp://ftp.iicm.tu-graz.ac.at/pub/Hyper-G/Harmony/harmony.faq
Harmony Features
----------------
o Hierarchical Browsing
Harmony's Collection Browser displays the hierarchical membership
structure of Hyper-G data, like a graphical file browser.
o Search
Harmony supports both attribute (keyword, title, author, creation
time, etc.) and content (full text) searches; search results are
presented as a ranked list. The scope of searches is user-definable,
ranging from individual collections to all collections on all
Hyper-G servers world-wide.
o Hyperlinks
Harmony supports hyperlinks between arbitrary document types,
including text, image, film, PostScript, and 3D models. Source and
destination anchors can be defined interactively.
o Local Map
Harmony's Local Map presents a dynamically generated graphical
overview of the link relationships of a chosen document: *both*
incoming and outgoing hyperlinks are represented. Selecting an
object toward the edge of the map and generating a new display
offers a new means of associative browsing.
o Location Feedback
Selecting a document or collection in the local map, in the search
result list, or following a hyperlink, causes the location of the
corresponding object to be *automatically* displayed in the
collection browser, providing a powerful aid to orientation.
o History
The History Browser offers a timeline of past interactive waypoints,
including previous search panels.
o 3D Information Landscape
The Information Landscape is a three-dimensional graphical overview
map of the collection structure. Users can "fly" over the hyperspace
landscape looking for salient features, select interesting
documents, etc. This feature requires platform support for IrisGL,
OpenGL or Mesa and is currently available for SGI, DEC Alpha, Solaris,
Linux, HPUX machines.
o Multilinguality
Harmony's user interface adjusts dynamically to the language of
first choice, documents available in multiple languages are selected
in order of language preference, and searches are optionally
language-dependent.
Document Viewers
----------------
Documents in Harmony are displayed by separate viewer processes in
windows of their own:
o Text
A generic SGML parser is used to display Hyper-G (HTF) and WWW
(HTML) texts. Inline images in GIF, JPEG, XPM, XBM and TIFF formats
are supported.
o Image
GIF, JPEG, and TIFF images are supported and may be zoomed, panned,
etc. A special feature is live display -- when turned on, images are
built up progressively on-screen as they are loaded. The autofit
option automatically scales images to fit the current image viewer
window.
o Film
MPEG-1 video streams are supported. Options include live display
while loading, double size display, alternative dithering methods,
and gamma correction. After loading, selective portions of the film
may be replayed, the frame rate altered, etc.
o Audio
The Audio Player supports both the Network Audio System (NAS) and
local audio commands provided on your system.
o PostScript
PostScript files can be displayed page by page, zoomed, printed,
etc.
o 3D Scene
3D model descriptions are displayed and can be manipulated or
traversed in three dimensions. Hyperlinks are attached to objects in
the model. This feature requires platform support for IrisGL,
OpenGL or Mesa and is currently available for SGI, DEC Alpha
Solaris, Linux, PMAX, HPUX machines.
*All* native Harmony viewers support both activation and interactive
definition of incoming and outgoing hyperlinks. Harmony can be
configured to use external programs to display any document type (but
without linking capabilities).
User Configuration
------------------
Most features of Harmony can be configured by X resources, and many
of them interactively as well. We are working on a mechanism for
writing interactive configurations to a file and hence saving them
between Harmony sessions automatically (currently you have to enter
them into your ~/.Xdefaults file by hand).
Upcoming Features
-----------------
o Annotations.
o Better link manipulation and editing for existing links.
o A drag-and-drop file browser facility for uploading documents.
o Drag-and-drop manipulation of the collection hierarchy.
o Image editing via the Image Viewer.
o Integrated electronic mail facilities.
o 3D visualisation of link relationships and search results.
o Interactive forms.
o A Vector Graphics viewer.
o Online help.
