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| Alan
Liu |
Hypertext
Fiction Tracker
Conceptual
Demo of XML Application |
Note: Proper viewing
of the XML documents on this page require a browser
able to render XML and XSLT stylesheets. Currently,
these requirements are met by Internet Explorer
6.0 with its 4.0 version XML driver. (This page
last revised
10/12/02
)
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Tracker is a purely speculative, proof-of-concept
demo of an XML-based "critical apparatus"
for hypertext fiction. It is designed to facilitate
the pedagogy and scholarly discussion of hypertext
literature by providing a standard means of
citing, annotating, and linking to elements
in a work (no matter the work's original platform,
media, or structure). |
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| Intended Uses
Authors and publishers of hypertext fiction
interested in placing a work in the classroom
would include an XML
document describing the work and its structure
in a standardized way (validated against the
Tracker schema).
(Alternatively, scholars and instructors would
create such documents and make them available
to others.) A variety of prefabricated or
custom-made XSLT
stylesheets (for displaying the XML document
on the Web) would then allow users to cite,
link to, filter, and sort works in a standard
way.
In addition, XML will allow information about
a hypertext work to be read automatically
by application programs of various sorts.
This raises the intriguing possibility of
programs that provide a "meta-view"
of hypertext fiction—e.g., a "fiction-browser"
that creates on-the-fly views of such topics
as "self," "love," "memory,"
etc. based on assemblages or sequences of
elements from different online hypertext fictions.
XML is also increasingly convergent with
structured databases (esp. relational databases).
This potentially expands its use to the full
range of archival and interactive information
retrieval characteristic of databases. (XML
can now be moved automatically in and out
of structured databases—e.g., through
export/import features in database programs,
or XML-editing programs that can extract information
from databases. XML-Query language also raises
the possibility of robust querying akin to
SQL for databases.) |
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| Demo
As a proof-of-concept instrument, Tracker
is very elementary and incomplete. The creation
of an XSL schema fully adequate to a wide
range of contemporary hypertext fiction would
require the deliberation of a consortium of
hypertext authors and scholars.
Currently, Tracker consists of the
following components:
- XML document
(in multiple, particular instances) containing
descriptive information and links to Edward
Falco's 1999 online work, "Self-Portrait
of Child With Father" [link
to original work]. Only a small portion
of the work is now represented:
(Note:
Netscape 4+ does not read XML)
- XSL schema
against which the XML document can be validated
to ensure standardization and completeness
of data entry: hypertext_fiction.xsd
(validation is performed by a script). Alternatively,
a DTD could be created for the document
(as in SGML documents).
- XSLT (Extensible
Stylesheets Language Transformations) stylesheet
that transforms the XML document into HTML
for display on the Web: Hypertext_Fiction.xsl
(and variants; see above). Alternative methods
for displaying XML as HTML include cascading
style sheets, data binding, and DOM scripts.
When a Web browser opens the XML document
(e.g., falco_instance.xml),
the appropriate XLST stylesheet is also downloaded
to govern the display of the document. |
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