Louis Perrochon, Roman Fischer. Institute for Information Systems, ETH Zürich.

Proceedings of the Third International Conference on the World-Wide Web (WWW'95), Darmstadt, Germany, April 1995

Keywords: World-Wide Web (W3,WWW), translation servers, interactive sessions, user interface

INSPEC: Formal Specification; Interactive Systems; Internet; Online Front-Ends; Specification Languages; User Interfaces
Unified W3-Access; Interactive Information Servers; Idle; Library Information System; W3-Browser; Terminal Emulation Program; User Interface; Server-Commands; Translation Server; Gateway; World Wide Web; User Interface Description Language
C6140D (High level languages); C6110F (Formal methods); C7210 (Information services and centres); C7250N (Front end systems for online searching)

Language: English.

Abstract: This paper puts the focus on the problem of accessing interactive services ("interactive sessions", e.g. an existing library information system) directly with a W3-client instead of starting an external viewer (a VT-100 emulation program). A language (IDLE) is proposed to describe the user interface of interactive services in a way that allows automatic translation of W3-requests to commands for the interactive services. Interactive services described with IDLE can then be accessed by any W3-client via a special translation server. Describing the user interface of an interactive service can be much easier than other solutions like designing a new gateway for each service.

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Second Prize in the Best Paper Award