A hypertext display component for a graphical user interface development environment

Hypertext is often used in the World Wide Web and in application help tools, but it is certainly capable of much more. If it was available to application programmers as another graphical user interface component, like a button or an image, a wider range of use could be enabled. The Hypertext Display System (HDS), provides a hypertext component which can then be incorporated into a graphical user interface (GUI) development environment. The HDS consists of a hypertext display component, called the HyperDisplay, and a test-bed in the form of a local HTML file browser. Its distinctive characteristics are (1) it was developed with an object-oriented design, using C++, for the Motif X toolkit, (2) it encapsulates the hypertext display capability in the reusable HyperDisplay object, so that it can be easily included in other applications, and (3) the HyperDisplay object is designed with portability in mind, so it can be ported to additional systems. This paper describes the HDS and the HyperDisplay component with: an introduction and design overview, including the class subsystems; a high-level view of their implementation; and a discussion of future directions