PROXHY: a process-oriented extensible hypertext architecture

Reviewer: David A. Buehler

The authors based this paper on an earlier dissertation on hypertext architecture. Their thorough research reflects the historical development of hypertext from an interesting exercise in storage and retrieval to a highly useful modality for navigating large databases. They give proper credit to the work of Engelbart, Meyrowitz, Nelson, Halasz, et al. PROXHY is an implementation of their hypertext architecture that they intend to be “easily integrated with other systems to form a single work environment” (p.<__?__Pub Fmt interword-space>400), unlike its “monolithic” precursors, an apparent reference to hypermedia such as Guide, Plus, Toolbook, HyperCard and others on both the DOS and Macintosh platforms. Although the authors convey an appreciation for the hazards of travel across programming environments, they provide little evidence that PROXHY has achieved—relatively or actually—its intended goals. The screen shots presented convey a sterile, non-graphic environment, although the paper includes references to innovative tools for the hypertext toolbox. Among these are <__?__Pub Fmt italic>anchors<__?__Pub Fmt /italic>, <__?__Pub Fmt italic>quick links<__?__Pub Fmt /italic>, and <__?__Pub Fmt italic>breadcrumbs<__?__Pub Fmt /italic>. The human user interface is given scant attention, beyond the fact that PROXHY is presented in an X-Windows context. An example of how the trail of “breadcrumbs” could mislead the end user is shown by the use of mere bold and italic on-screen fonts in order to designate information for navigational links. What if the information is already bold, italic, or both__?__ The basic concept of PROXHY deserves high marks. The implementation shown here, however, leaves one wanting, particularly for those graphically-rich environments in higher education that require animation, sound, and real-time video—<__?__Pub Caret>that is, a toolbox more sophisticated than the one presented here.