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1 # | |
2 # FILE: README | |
3 # SUMMARY: Intro information on Hyperbole. | |
4 # | |
5 # AUTHOR: Bob Weiner | |
6 # | |
7 # ORIG-DATE: 19-Oct-91 at 03:27:47 | |
8 # LAST-MOD: 3-Nov-95 at 23:20:31 by Bob Weiner | |
9 | |
10 The author's work on this project has been sponsored by Motorola Inc. | |
11 | |
12 We hope you enjoy using and developing with Hyperbole. Suggestions and bug | |
13 reports are welcome, as described later in this document. Feel free to | |
14 mail or post news containing this file wherever it may be of use. | |
15 | |
16 | |
17 =========================================================================== | |
18 * Table of Contents | |
19 =========================================================================== | |
20 * Hyperbole Overview | |
21 * What's New | |
22 * How to Obtain | |
23 * Installation / Configuration | |
24 * Quick Reference | |
25 * Mail Lists | |
26 * User Quotes | |
27 * Why was Hyperbole developed? | |
28 * Copyright | |
29 | |
30 | |
31 =========================================================================== | |
32 * Hyperbole Overview | |
33 =========================================================================== | |
34 | |
35 Hyperbole is an open, efficient, programmable information management and | |
36 hypertext system. It is intended for everyday work on any UNIX platform | |
37 supported by GNU Emacs. It works well with the versions of Emacs that | |
38 support multiple X or NEXTSTEP windows: GNU Emacs V19, XEmacs (formerly | |
39 called Lucid Emacs) and Epoch. Hyperbole allows hypertext buttons to be | |
40 embedded within unstructured and structured files, mail messages and | |
41 news articles. It offers intuitive mouse-based control of information | |
42 display within multiple windows. It also provides point-and-click | |
43 access to Info manuals, ftp archives, Wide-Area Information Servers | |
44 (WAIS), and the World-Wide Web (WWW) hypertext system through | |
45 encapsulations of software that support these protocols. | |
46 | |
47 Hyperbole consists of four parts: | |
48 | |
49 1. Info Management: an interactive information management interface, | |
50 including a powerful rolodex, which anyone can use. It is easy | |
51 to pick up and use since it introduces only a few new mechanisms | |
52 and provides user-level facilities through a menu interface, | |
53 which you control from the keyboard or the mouse; | |
54 | |
55 2. Hypertext Outliner: an outliner with multi-level autonumbering | |
56 and permanent ids attached to each outline node for use as | |
57 hypertext link anchors, plus flexible view specifications that | |
58 can be embedded within links or used interactively; | |
59 | |
60 3. Button Types: A set of hyper-button types that provides | |
61 core hypertext and other behaviors. Users can make simple | |
62 changes to button types and those familiar with Emacs Lisp can | |
63 quickly prototype and deliver new types; | |
64 | |
65 4. Programming Library: a set of programming library classes for | |
66 system developers who want to integrate Hyperbole with another | |
67 user interface or as a back-end to a distinct system. (All of | |
68 Hyperbole is written in Emacs Lisp for ease of modification. | |
69 Although Hyperbole was initially designed as a prototype, it has | |
70 been engineered for real-world usage and is well structured.) | |
71 | |
72 A Hyperbole user works with buttons; he may create, modify, | |
73 move or delete buttons. Each button performs a specific action, such as | |
74 linking to a file or executing a shell command. | |
75 | |
76 There are three categories of Hyperbole buttons: | |
77 | |
78 1. Explicit Buttons | |
79 created by Hyperbole, accessible from within a single document; | |
80 | |
81 2. Global Buttons | |
82 created by Hyperbole, accessible anywhere within a user's | |
83 network of documents; | |
84 | |
85 3. Implicit Buttons | |
86 buttons created and managed by other programs or embedded | |
87 within the structure of a document, accessible from within a | |
88 single document. Hyperbole recognizes implicit buttons by | |
89 contextual patterns given in their type specifications. | |
90 | |
91 Hyperbole buttons may be clicked upon with a mouse to activate them or | |
92 to describe their actions. Thus, a user can always check how a button | |
93 will act before activating it. Buttons may also be activated from a | |
94 keyboard. (In fact, virtually all Hyperbole operations, including menu | |
95 usage, may be performed from any standard character terminal interface, so | |
96 one need not be anchored to a workstation all day). | |
97 | |
98 Hyperbole does not enforce any particular hypertext or information management | |
99 model, but instead allows you to organize your information in large or small | |
100 chunks as you see fit. The Hyperbole outliner organizes information | |
101 hierarchies which may also contain links to external information sources. | |
102 | |
103 Some of Hyperbole's most important features include: | |
104 | |
105 Buttons may link to information or may execute procedures, such as | |
106 starting or communicating with external programs; | |
107 | |
108 One simply drags between a button source location and a link destination | |
109 to create or to modify a link button. The same result can be achieved | |
110 from the keyboard. | |
111 | |
112 Buttons may be embedded within electronic mail messages; | |
113 | |
114 Outlines allow rapid browsing, editing and movement of chunks of | |
115 information organized into trees (hierarchies); | |
116 | |
117 Other hypertext and information retrieval systems may be | |
118 encapsulated under a Hyperbole user interface (a number of samples | |
119 are provided). | |
120 | |
121 Typical Hyperbole applications include: | |
122 | |
123 Personal Information Management | |
124 Overlapping link paths provide a variety of views into an | |
125 information space. | |
126 | |
127 A search facility locates buttons in context and permits quick | |
128 selection. | |
129 | |
130 Documentation Browsing | |
131 Embed cross-references in your favorite documentation format. | |
132 | |
133 Add a point-and-click interface to existing documentation. | |
134 | |
135 Link code and design documents. Jump to the definition of an | |
136 identifier from its use within code or its reference within | |
137 documentation. | |
138 | |
139 Brainstorming | |
140 Capture ideas and then quickly reorganize them with the Hyperbole | |
141 outliner. Link to related ideas, eliminating the need to copy | |
142 and paste information into a single place. | |
143 | |
144 Help/Training Systems | |
145 Create tutorials with embedded buttons that show students how | |
146 things work while explaining the concepts, e.g. an introduction | |
147 to UNIX commands. This technique can be much more effective than | |
148 descriptions alone. | |
149 | |
150 Archive Managers | |
151 Supplement programs that manage archives from incoming | |
152 information streams by having them add topic-based buttons that | |
153 link to the archive holdings. Users can then search and create | |
154 their own links to archive entries. | |
155 | |
156 | |
157 =========================================================================== | |
158 * What's New in V4.00 and V4.01? | |
159 =========================================================================== | |
160 | |
161 (See "ChangeLog" for more complete details of changes.) | |
162 | |
163 ACTION AND ASSIST KEYS | |
164 | |
165 - New variable, action-key-url-function, sets the function used to | |
166 display URLs which are activated as implicit buttons with the Action | |
167 Key. | |
168 | |
169 - Action or Assist Key presses at the end of a line now scroll | |
170 proportionally, by default. See the documentation for the variable, | |
171 smart-scroll-proportional, and the Smart Scrolling section of the | |
172 Hyperbole DEMO file, for more information. | |
173 | |
174 - Fixed bug that prevented browsing Info files in dired with the Action | |
175 Key. | |
176 | |
177 BUTTON TYPES | |
178 | |
179 - "hsys-w3.el" is now automatically loaded so that the Action Key can | |
180 follow URLs by default. It defines the implicit button type, www-url. | |
181 | |
182 - New implicit button type, text-toc, makes table of contents entries in | |
183 README files jump to the associated section of the file. Try it with | |
184 this file once you have loaded the current version of Hyperbole. | |
185 | |
186 DOCUMENTATION | |
187 | |
188 - A lot of work has gone into reorganizing and rewriting the Hyperbole | |
189 manual to improve its readability and completeness. A full chapter on | |
190 the Koutliner has been added. Please take some time to read the parts | |
191 of interest to you and send your feedback on what is good and what is | |
192 not to the mail list, <hyperbole@hub.ucsb.edu>. | |
193 | |
194 EMACS VERSIONS | |
195 | |
196 - MS-DOS and Windows NT Emacs 19 or Win-Emacs: Made Hyperbole work under | |
197 all of these PC Emacs versions. | |
198 | |
199 - Emacs 19: Fixed bug that prevented Action Key selection of minibuffer | |
200 menu items. | |
201 | |
202 - Emacs 19: Hyperbole menubar menus are now properly displayed. | |
203 | |
204 - Emacs 19: Action Key press on a filename that has a .info suffix | |
205 displays the Top node for that info file in the Info browser. | |
206 | |
207 KOUTLINER | |
208 | |
209 - You can now view and edit koutlines with blank lines between cells | |
210 turned off. {C-c b} now toggles between showing or hiding blank lines. | |
211 | |
212 - Minibuffer menu item Otl/Below renamed to Otl/Downto so could add | |
213 Otl/Blanks which toggles blank lines on and off. | |
214 | |
215 - {C-c C-o} which displays one line per cell, for an overview, now also | |
216 turns off blank lines. | |
217 | |
218 - {C-c C-i} adds an attribute to the current cell. It changes the | |
219 attribute's value if it already exists. Completion on existing | |
220 attribute names from the cell is provided. | |
221 | |
222 - {C-c h}, which displays cell attributes, when given "0" as the cell id | |
223 now displays the zero cell's attributes in addition to any other | |
224 attributes shown. | |
225 | |
226 - By default, the outliner separates labels from cell contents by two | |
227 spaces. If you want to change the separator for the current outline, | |
228 use {C-c M-l}. {C-u C-c M-l} will additionally change the default | |
229 separator value used when new outlines are created. | |
230 | |
231 - If you invoke {M-x kotl-mode RET} on a non-read-only, non-koutline | |
232 buffer, it converts each paragraph in the buffer into a level 1 cell, | |
233 and thereby creates a koutline buffer. The conversion uses the | |
234 buffer-specific variable, `paragraph-start' to determine the paragraphs | |
235 in the buffer. | |
236 | |
237 - If you save a koutline to a file whose name does not end in .kotl, | |
238 e.g. with {C-x C-w} (kfile:write), it will still be treated as a valid | |
239 koutline when you read it in again. You can create a koutline file | |
240 without the standard suffix via {M-x kfile:find RET} or by converting a | |
241 buffer to a koutline via {M-x kotl-mode RET}. | |
242 | |
243 - Each koutline now maintains a current view setting that is saved with | |
244 the outline and restored when it is first displayed. View settings | |
245 include: show/hide blank lines, show a fixed number of lines per cell, | |
246 show a fixed number of levels in the outline, show all lines and cells, | |
247 show/hide ellipses after truncated outline entries, set cell numbering | |
248 (label) types. | |
249 | |
250 - View settings are controlled by single character codes called view | |
251 specs. The current view spec setting for a koutline appears in the | |
252 modeline following the name of the outline. The current view spec | |
253 setting may be changed interactively with {C-c C-v}. | |
254 See <${hyperb:dir}/kotl/EXAMPLE.kotl, 2b16=048> for details on valid | |
255 view specs. | |
256 | |
257 - Minibuffer menu item Otl/View changed to Otl/Vspec to set a view | |
258 specification. Use {C-x C-r} to view a Koutline in read-only mode. | |
259 | |
260 - Added View menu to Koutliner popup and pulldown menus. Moved | |
261 view-related tree operations from Tree menu to View menu. | |
262 | |
263 - Fixed importation of star outline and Augment-style files. | |
264 | |
265 - The elements of a another buffer or file may be inserted into a | |
266 koutline as a set of cells by using the {C-x i} command. When prompted, | |
267 you may use a buffer name or file name from which to insert. | |
268 | |
269 The cells will be inserted as the successors of the current cell unless | |
270 {C-u C-x i} is used and then they are inserted as the initial children | |
271 of the current cell. | |
272 | |
273 See the documentation for the variables, kimport:mode-alist and | |
274 kimport:suffix-alist, for information on mode and suffix-specific | |
275 conversions performed on files before they are inserted. | |
276 | |
277 Use {M-x kotl-mode:insert-file-contents RET} to insert the entire | |
278 contents of a file into the current cell at the location of point. | |
279 | |
280 - {M-x kimport:file RET} will prompt for a file and a new koutline file | |
281 to create and will insert the elements of the file in the new outline. | |
282 (You can also use buffer or buffer names as arguments instead of file | |
283 names.) See the documentation for the variables, kimport:mode-alist | |
284 and kimport:suffix-alist, for information on how the importation type | |
285 is determined. | |
286 | |
287 - {C-c +} appends the contents of one cell to the end of another. Added | |
288 this as Append-Cell to popup and pulldown menus. | |
289 | |
290 - {M-w}, copy-region, now works properly in read-only outlines. | |
291 | |
292 ROLODEX | |
293 | |
294 - {e} within a rolodex match buffer edits the associated entry within your | |
295 rolodex source file. Fixed bug that caused {e} to fail when entries | |
296 are collapsed within the match buffer. | |
297 | |
298 - {C-h h r e}, rolo-edit, just displays your personal rolodex file if you | |
299 hit {RET} without specifying an entry name to edit. | |
300 | |
301 - {m} within a rolodex match buffer composes mail to the the e-mail | |
302 address at point or the first address following point. Also added as | |
303 Rolo/Mail minibuffer menu item and Rolodex/Mail-to-Address for window | |
304 system menus. | |
305 | |
306 - New variable, wrolo-yank-reformat-function permits reformatting of an | |
307 entry yanked into the current buffer with {C-h h r y}, rolo-yank. | |
308 | |
309 WINDOW CONFIGURATIONS | |
310 | |
311 - The minibuffer menu items, Win/PopRing and Win/YankRing now redisplay | |
312 the Win menu after performing their actions. This allows you to yank | |
313 or pop window configurations repeatedly until you get to the one you | |
314 want. | |
315 | |
316 =========================================================================== | |
317 * How to Obtain | |
318 =========================================================================== | |
319 | |
320 Hyperbole is actually part of an integrated tool framework that we have | |
321 developed called InfoDock. InfoDock provides a modern user interface on top | |
322 of Emacs, information management, and powerful software development tools, | |
323 all in one package. Get it via anonymous ftp from host ftp.xemacs.org in | |
324 the /pub/infodock directory. | |
325 | |
326 Hyperbole is also available as a standalone package via anonymous ftp across | |
327 the Internet. Do not send requests to have it mailed to you since it won't | |
328 be. Instead have another party who has Internet access obtain it for the | |
329 both of you. | |
330 | |
331 Here is how to obtain Hyperbole as a standalone package on the Internet: | |
332 | |
333 Move to a directory below which you want the 'hyperbole' directory to | |
334 be created. Unpacking the Hyperbole archive will create this | |
335 directory and place all of the files below it. | |
336 | |
337 cd <LOCAL-LISP-DIR> | |
338 | |
339 Ftp to ftp.xemacs.org (Internet Host ID = 128.174.252.16): | |
340 | |
341 prompt> ftp ftp.xemacs.org | |
342 | |
343 Login as 'anonymous' with your own <user-id>@<site-name> as a password. | |
344 | |
345 Name (ftp.xemacs.org): anonymous | |
346 331 Guest login ok, send EMAIL address (e.g. user@host.domain) as password. | |
347 Password: | |
348 230 Guest login ok, access restrictions apply. | |
349 | |
350 Move to the Hyperbole directory: | |
351 | |
352 ftp> cd pub/infodock | |
353 | |
354 Set your transfer mode to binary: | |
355 | |
356 ftp> bin | |
357 200 Type set to I. | |
358 | |
359 Turn off prompting: | |
360 | |
361 ftp> prompt | |
362 Interactive mode off. | |
363 | |
364 Retrieve just the Hyperbole archive and any diff-based patches (there may not | |
365 be any patches): | |
366 | |
367 ftp> mget hyperbole* | |
368 | |
369 Close the ftp connection: | |
370 | |
371 ftp> quit | |
372 221 Goodbye. | |
373 | |
374 Unpack the tar archive using the GNU version of the 'zcat' program: | |
375 | |
376 zcat h*tar.gz | tar xvf - | |
377 or | |
378 gunzip h*tar.gz; tar xvf h*tar | |
379 | |
380 Apply any patches you retrieved, also: | |
381 | |
382 cd hyperbole; patch < <patch-file> | |
383 | |
384 | |
385 =========================================================================== | |
386 * Installation / Configuration | |
387 =========================================================================== | |
388 | |
389 The following explains how to Use the Hyperbole "Makefile" to compile any | |
390 needed code, to generate the "hsite.el" file used for site-specific Hyperbole | |
391 customization, and to produce printable documentation. | |
392 | |
393 Edit the line near the top of "Makefile" that represents the emacs version | |
394 that you use, so that it corresponds to the emacs executable name used on | |
395 your system. Then immediatly below there, set the EMACS variable to the | |
396 variable name for the emacs that you will use to compile the Hyperbole Lisp | |
397 files. | |
398 | |
399 You may also have to set the SITE-PRELOADS variable defined further down | |
400 in the file; follow the instructions that precede the `SITE-PRELOADS =' | |
401 line. Make these changes now and save the Makefile. | |
402 | |
403 To install Hyperbole for use with InfoDock, XEmacs, GNU Emacs or Epoch, from | |
404 a shell: | |
405 | |
406 cd <HYPERBOLE-DIR>; make | |
407 | |
408 All of the .elc compiled Lisp files are already built for XEmacs and V19, so | |
409 this build will finish very quickly. If you really want to rebuild all of | |
410 the .elc files, use: | |
411 | |
412 cd <HYPERBOLE-DIR>; make all-elc | |
413 | |
414 To produce the Postscript version of the Hyperbole manual: | |
415 | |
416 cd <HYPERBOLE-DIR>; make ps | |
417 | |
418 To install Hyperbole for use with GNU Emacs V18 or Epoch: | |
419 | |
420 cd <HYPERBOLE-DIR>; make all-elc-v18 | |
421 | |
422 This will produce a complete set of Emacs V18 .elc files. | |
423 | |
424 ---- | |
425 | |
426 The Hyperbole Manual is included in two forms: | |
427 | |
428 "man/hyperbole.info" - online version | |
429 "man/hyperbole.texi" - source form | |
430 | |
431 To add pointers to the Info version of the Hyperbole manual within your Info | |
432 directory, follow these instructions. If `Info-directory-list' is bound as a | |
433 variable within your Emacs, you can simply set it so that <HYPERBOLE-DIR> is | |
434 an element in the list. Otherwise, from a shell, cd to the directory given | |
435 by your 'Info-directory' variable and execute the following command: | |
436 | |
437 (rm hyperbole.info*; cp <HYPERBOLE-DIR>/man/hyperbole.info* .) | |
438 | |
439 Then add an Info menu entry for the Hyperbole manual in your Info "dir" file: | |
440 (the `*' should be placed in the first column of the file): | |
441 | |
442 * Hyperbole:: GNU Emacs-based everyday information management system. | |
443 Use {C-h h d d} for a demonstration. Includes context-sensitive | |
444 mouse and keyboard support, a powerful rolodex, an autonumbered | |
445 outliner with hyperlink anchors for each outline cell, and extensible | |
446 hypertext facilities including hyper-links in mail and news messages. | |
447 | |
448 ---- | |
449 | |
450 To set up so that all Emacs users have Hyperbole loaded for them, add the | |
451 following lines to a site initialization file such as "site-start.el". | |
452 Otherwise, each user will have to add these lines to his own "~/.emacs" | |
453 initialization file. The following instructions use the term | |
454 <HYPERBOLE-DIR>/ to refer to your hyperbole/ directory, so substitute your | |
455 own value. | |
456 | |
457 To autoload Hyperbole so that it loads only when needed: | |
458 | |
459 (defvar hyperb:dir "<HYPERBOLE-DIR>/") | |
460 "Directory where the Hyperbole executable code is kept. | |
461 It must end with a directory separator character.") | |
462 | |
463 (load (expand-file-name "hversion" hyperb:dir)) | |
464 (load (expand-file-name "hyperbole" hyperb:dir)) | |
465 | |
466 To fully load Hyperbole upon startup, add the additional line: | |
467 | |
468 (require 'hsite) | |
469 | |
470 That's all there is to the installation. | |
471 | |
472 ---- | |
473 | |
474 Once Hyperbole has been installed for use at your site, you can invoke it | |
475 with {C-h h} or {M-x hyperbole RET} to bring up the Hyperbole main menu in | |
476 the minibuffer window. | |
477 | |
478 | |
479 =========================================================================== | |
480 * Quick Reference | |
481 =========================================================================== | |
482 | |
483 "MANIFEST" summarizes most of the files in the distribution. | |
484 | |
485 See "DEMO" for a demonstration of standard Hyperbole button | |
486 capabilities. | |
487 | |
488 Naming conventions: | |
489 | |
490 - All Hyperbole-specific code files begin with an 'h', aside from the | |
491 Koutliner files which are in the kotl/ subdirectory and begin with a 'k'. | |
492 | |
493 - Hyperbole user-interface files begin with 'hui-' or 'hmous'. | |
494 | |
495 - Files that define implicit button types begin with 'hib'. | |
496 | |
497 - Encapsulations of foreign systems begin with 'hsys-'. | |
498 | |
499 Most of the standard Emacs user interface for Hyperbole is located in | |
500 "hui.el". Most of the Hyperbole application programming interface can be | |
501 found in "hbut.el". "hbdata.el" encapsulates the button attribute storage | |
502 handling presently implemented by Hyperbole. "hmail.el" provides a basic | |
503 abstract interface for folding mail readers other than Rmail into Hyperbole. | |
504 | |
505 See the "(hyperbole.info)Questions and Answers" appendix in the | |
506 Hyperbole manual for information on how to alter the default | |
507 context-sensitive Hyperbole key bindings. | |
508 | |
509 | |
510 =========================================================================== | |
511 * Mail Lists | |
512 =========================================================================== | |
513 | |
514 There are several Hyperbole-related mail addresses. Learn what each is | |
515 for before you mail to any of them. | |
516 | |
517 <hyperbole-request@hub.ucsb.edu> | |
518 <hyperbole-announce-request@hub.ucsb.edu> | |
519 | |
520 ALL mail concerning administration of the Hyperbole mailing lists should | |
521 be sent to the appropriate one of these addresses. That includes | |
522 addition, change, or deletion requests. Don't consider sending such a | |
523 request to a Hyperbole mail list or people will wonder why you don't know | |
524 that all Internet mail lists have a -request address for administrative | |
525 requests. | |
526 | |
527 Use the following formats on your subject line to execute requests, | |
528 where you substitute your own values for the <> delimited items. | |
529 | |
530 Subject: Subscribe '<' <user@domain> '>' (<your name>). | |
531 Subject: Unsubscribe '<' <user@domain> '>'. | |
532 | |
533 To change your address, you must unsubscribe your old address in one | |
534 message and then subscribe your new address in another message. | |
535 | |
536 For example: | |
537 | |
538 To: hyperbole-announce-request@hub.ucsb.edu | |
539 Subject: Unsubscribe <joe@any.com>. | |
540 | |
541 To: hyperbole-announce-request@hub.ucsb.edu | |
542 Subject: Subscribe <joe@any.com> (Joe Williams). | |
543 | |
544 There are two Hyperbole-related mail lists. Subscribe to one or the other, | |
545 not to both. | |
546 | |
547 <hyperbole@hub.ucsb.edu> | |
548 | |
549 Mail list for discussion of all Hyperbole issues. Bug reports and | |
550 suggestions may also be sent here. | |
551 | |
552 Always use your Subject and/or Summary: lines to state the position | |
553 that your message takes on the topic that it addresses, e.g. send | |
554 "Subject: Basic bug in top-level minibuffer menu." rather than | |
555 "Subject: Hyperbole bug". Statements end with periods, questions | |
556 with question marks (typically), and high energy, high impact | |
557 declarations with exclamation points. This simple rule makes all | |
558 e-mail communication much easier for recipients to handle | |
559 appropriately. | |
560 | |
561 If you ask a question, your subject line should end with a '?', | |
562 e.g. "Subject: How can man page SEE ALSOs be made implicit buttons?" A | |
563 "Subject: Re: How can ..." then indicates an answer to the question. | |
564 Question messages should normally include your Hyperbole and Emacs version | |
565 numbers and clearly explain your problem and surrounding issues. | |
566 Otherwise, you will simply waste the time of those who may want to help | |
567 you. (Your top-level Hyperbole menu shows its version number and {M-x | |
568 emacs-version RET} gives the other.) | |
569 | |
570 If you ask questions, you should consider adding to the discussion by | |
571 telling people the kinds of work you are doing or contemplating doing | |
572 with Hyperbole. In this way, the list will not be overwhelmed by | |
573 messages that ask for, but provide no information. | |
574 | |
575 <hyperbole-announce@hub.ucsb.edu> | |
576 | |
577 Those who don't want to participate in the discussion but want to | |
578 hear about bug fixes and new releases of Hyperbole should subscribe | |
579 to this list. Anyone on the `hyperbole' list is automatically on | |
580 this one too, so there is no need to subscribe to this one in that | |
581 case. This list is for official fixes and announcements so don't send | |
582 your own fixes here. Send them to `hyperbole' instead. | |
583 | |
584 | |
585 =========================================================================== | |
586 * User Quotes | |
587 =========================================================================== | |
588 | |
589 | |
590 *** MAN I love Hyperbole!!! Wow! *** | |
591 | |
592 -- Ken Olstad | |
593 Cheyenne Software, Inc. | |
594 | |
595 ------- | |
596 | |
597 I *love* koutlines. | |
598 | |
599 -- Bob Glickstein | |
600 Z-Code Software Corporation | |
601 ------- | |
602 | |
603 I am blind and have been using Hyperbole since 1992. I used to use a PC as | |
604 a talking terminal attached to a UNIX system, but then I developed | |
605 Emacspeak which lets me use Emacs and Hyperbole from standard UNIX | |
606 workstations with an attached voice synthesizer. | |
607 | |
608 My main uses are: | |
609 1) Global and implicit buttons for jumping to ftp sites. | |
610 2) The rolodex with Emacspeak support. | |
611 3) Explicit buttons as part of comments made about a structured document. | |
612 Each button jumps to the document section referred to by the comment. | |
613 This is very, very useful. | |
614 4) The Hyperbole outliner, which I find a very useful tool. I've | |
615 implemented Emacspeak extensions to support it. | |
616 | |
617 -- TV Raman | |
618 Digital Cambridge Research Lab | |
619 | |
620 ------- | |
621 | |
622 I've been a grateful Hyperbole user for a few years now. Hyperbole's | |
623 flexibility and ease of use is a marvel. | |
624 | |
625 Mainly, I write easy little implicit button types (and corresponding action | |
626 types) to make my life easier. For example, I have an implicit button type | |
627 to bury certain buffers when I click at their bottoms, one that recognizes | |
628 a bug report record in various contexts and edits it, one that links pieces | |
629 of test output in a log file to the corresponding test case source code | |
630 (EXTREMELY helpful in interpreting test output), others that support our | |
631 homegrown test framework, one that handles tree dired mode the way I'd | |
632 like, one that completely handles wico menus (I've also overloaded the | |
633 wconfig actions triggered by diagonal mouse drags with wicos actions), and | |
634 a couple that support interaction with BBDB. | |
635 | |
636 Other than that, I keep a global button file with 30 or so explicit buttons | |
637 that do various little things, and I index saved mail messages by putting | |
638 explicit link-to-mail buttons in an outline file. | |
639 | |
640 -- Ken Olstad | |
641 Cheyenne Software, Inc. | |
642 | |
643 ------- | |
644 | |
645 In general, Hyperbole is an embeddable, highly extensible hypertext | |
646 tool. As such, I find it very useful. As it stands now, Hyperbole is | |
647 particularly helpful for organizing ill-structured or loosely coupled | |
648 information, in part because there are few tools geared for this purpose. | |
649 Hyperbole also possesses a lot of potentials in supporting a wider | |
650 spectrum of structuredness, ranging from unstructured to highly | |
651 structured environments, as well as structural changes over time. | |
652 | |
653 Major Uses: | |
654 | |
655 * Menu interface to our own Epoch-based collaborative support environment | |
656 called CoReView: This interface brings together all top-level user | |
657 commands into a single partitioned screen, and allows the end user to | |
658 interact with the system using simple mouse-clicking instead of the | |
659 meta-x key. | |
660 | |
661 * Gateway to internet resources: this includes links to major Internet | |
662 archive sites of various types of information. Links are made at both | |
663 directory and file levels. | |
664 | |
665 * Alternative directory organizer: The hierarchical nature of the Unix | |
666 file system sometimes makes it difficult to find things quickly and | |
667 easily using directory navigational tools such as dired. Hyperbole | |
668 enables me to create various "profile" views of my directory tree, with | |
669 entries in these views referring to files anywhere in the hierarchy. | |
670 | |
671 * Organizing and viewing online documentation: using Hyperbole along with | |
672 Hyper-man and Info makes it truly easy to look up online documentation. | |
673 | |
674 * Other desktop organization tasks: including links to various mail | |
675 folders, saved newsgroup conversation threads, online note-taker, | |
676 emacs-command invocations, etc. | |
677 | |
678 -- Dadong Wan | |
679 | |
680 ------- | |
681 | |
682 Hyperbole is the first hyper-link system I've run across that is | |
683 actually part of the environment I use regularly, namely Emacs. The | |
684 complete flexibility of the links is both impressive and expected -- the | |
685 idea of making the link itself programmable is clever, and given that one | |
686 assumes the full power of Emacs. Being able to send email with buttons | |
687 in it is a very powerful capability. Using ange-ftp mode, one can make | |
688 file references "across the world" as easily as normal file references. | |
689 | |
690 -- Mark Eichin | |
691 Cygnus Support | |
692 ------- | |
693 | |
694 I just wanted to say how much I enjoy using the Hyperbole outliner. | |
695 It is a great way to quickly construct very readable technical documents | |
696 that I can pass around to others. Thanks for the great work. | |
697 | |
698 -- Jeff Fried | |
699 Informix | |
700 | |
701 ------- | |
702 | |
703 The Hyperbole system provides a nice interface to exploring corners of | |
704 Unix that I didn't know existed before. | |
705 | |
706 -- Craig Smith | |
707 | |
708 ------- | |
709 | |
710 | |
711 =========================================================================== | |
712 * Why was Hyperbole developed? | |
713 =========================================================================== | |
714 | |
715 Hyperbole has been designed to aid in research aimed at Personalized | |
716 Information production/retrieval Environments (PIEs). Hyperbole is a | |
717 PIE Manager that provides services to PIE Tools. PIEmail, a mail reader is | |
718 the only PIE Tool developed to date. | |
719 | |
720 An examination of many hypertext environments as background research did | |
721 not turn up any that seemed suitable for the research envisioned, mainly | |
722 due to the lack of rich, portable programmer and user environments. We also | |
723 tired of trying to manage our own distributed information pools with standard | |
724 UNIX tools. And so Hyperbole was conceived and raved about until it | |
725 got its name. | |
726 | |
727 | |
728 =========================================================================== | |
729 * Copyright | |
730 =========================================================================== | |
731 | |
732 The following copyright applies to the Hyperbole system as a whole. | |
733 | |
734 Copyright (C) 1989, 1990, 1991, 1992, 1993, 1994, 1995 Free Software Foundation, Inc. | |
735 | |
736 Available for use and distribution under the terms of the GNU Public License, | |
737 version 2 or higher. | |
738 | |
739 Hyperbole is free software; you can use it, redistribute it and/or modify it | |
740 without fee under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by | |
741 the Free Software Foundation; either version 2, or (at your option) any later | |
742 version. | |
743 | |
744 Hyperbole is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY | |
745 WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR | |
746 A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details. | |
747 | |
748 You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License | |
749 along with GNU Emacs or XEmacs; see the file COPYING. If not, write to | |
750 the Free Software Foundation, 675 Mass Ave, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA. | |
751 |