Document-Centric Authoring

Regarding the authoring, the Snippet Platform incorporates a set of facilities that enable document-centric workflows. These are characterized by users being able to focus on content creation, instead of having to cope with application functionality and its limitations. The platform's document-centric authoring facilities enable the seamless combination of various content types within the same document. Even an integration of static types like text, vector objects or images with more dynamic and interactive types is possible. In particular, application functionality can be combined with more conventional content, while remaining operable within the containing document. In consequence, also documents with highly interactive and dynamic content can be authored, which in a learning context can, for instance, be leveraged to support active learning.

Video 1: Content Integration

For further facilitating the authoring process, also the multi-granular reuse of content elements is supported. Entire documents and their individual user-defined excerpts can be reused in multiple other documents, guaranteeing that new documents do not have to be created entirely from scratch. Here, it can additionally be ensured that the instances of reused documents or excerpts remain fully in-sync. Also partially synced versions, among which only user-defined properties are synchronized, can be defined. For assessing the effect of the intended modifications, the effective access to all these versions along with their individual fully synced instances is guaranteed.

Video 2: Reuse & Synchronization Flavors

Context-based Authoring

The contextualization of documents is supported by means of semantic and algorithmic connections which can be used to interrelate documents and their individual excerpts. Hence, both their semantic and their algorithmic context can be captured, through so-called Relations respectively Dependencies. Algorithmic connections, i.e., Dependencies, are additionally kept in a consistent working state when any of the involved elements, i.e., documents or excerpts, is manipulated.

Video 3: Dependencies

For the easy access to contextual information, interconnected elements are automatically made available together in a so-called Space when any of them is accessed. In consequence, multiple browsing processes for individually retrieving these can be eliminated. Integrated visual aids, based on colors and descriptive labels, also assist users in comprehending or remembering how the involved elements are related to each other.

Video 4: Relation Spaces

Finally, the organization of documents is mostly enabled by the contextual connections just discussed. In addition, the Snippet Platform supports multiple lines of work, i.e., so-called Traces, which allow, for instance, grouping documents related to the same task. The lines are designed for assisting users in reconstructing their original train of thought in the context of a given task when the matching line is accessed. Moreover, that line also helps them to remember at what point exactly they stopped working on the task. This is achieved by tracing the activity related to the browsing of contextual connections, in combination with cognitive cues that are integrated into the lines of work's visualization.

Video 5: Traces

Architecture

For supporting all of the Snippet Platform's UI facilities, a dedicated architecture is also an integral part of the platform. It is characterized by a modular approach to application functionality and a fine-grained representation of documents. The latter models documents as graphs of interrelated Snippets, which constitutes an approach that inherently supports the reuse of documents and their excerpts. The reason here is that distinct documents' Snippet graphs can entirely or partially overlap, thus automatically synchronizing the data in the shared Snippets among the graphs involved. Moreover, the design of Snippets is entirely generic, guaranteeing that contextual connections and lines of work can be represented by Snippet graphs that are equivalent to those of conventional documents in terms of structure.

Regarding application functionality, a modular approach inspired by Unix shells and commands is adopted. In particular, the ease of use of graphical user interfaces is integrated with the interoperation capabilities of Unix software. The latter allows, for instance, combining any types of content within the same document, while individual operations on content can also be interconnected for more complex operations. Additionally, contextual connections and lines of work can be handled by the same kinds of modules, which is possible as these are based on equivalent representations.

Video 6: Interconnectable T-Commands

An important characteristic of the entire architecture is that it is agnostic of its realization and independent of concrete technologies. Hence, a broad range of deployment scenarios can be supported. Moreover, for a given scenario it is then possible to implement the architecture by means of the technologies that best match with the involved scenario's goals and priorities.