An Object-Oriented Approach to Conceptual Hypermedia Modeling

Abstract

This chapter introduces the MESH approach to hypermedia modeling and navigation, which aims at relieving the typical drawbacks of poor maintainability and user disorientation. The main focus is upon the data model, which combines established entity-relationship and object-oriented abstractions with proprietary concepts into a formal hypermedia data model. Uniform layout and link typing specifications can be attributed and inherited in a static node typing hierarchy, whereas both nodes and links can be submitted dynamically to multiple complementary classifications. In addition, the data model’s support for a context-based navigation paradigm, as well as a platform-independent implementation framework, are briefly discussed.