Michael P. Salisbury

Extending document management systems with user-specific active properties

Document properties are a compelling infrastructure on which to develop document management applications. A property-based approach avoids many of the problems of traditional heierarchical storage mechanisms, reflects document organizations meaningful to user tasks, provides a means to integrate the perspectives of multiple individuals and groups, and does this all within a uniform interaction framework. Document properties can reflect not only categorizations of documents and document use, but also expressions of desired system activity, such as sharing criteria, replication management, and versioning. Augmenting property-based document management systems with active properties that carry executable code enables the provision of document-based services on a property infrastructure. The combination of document properties as a uniform mechanism for document management, and active properties as a way of delivering document services, represents a new paradigm for document management infrastructures. The Placeless Documents system is an experimental prototype developed to explore this new paradigm. It is based on the seamless integration of user-specific, active properties. We present the fundamental design approach, explore the challenges and opportunities it presents, and show our architectures deals with them.

Presto: an experimental architecture for fluid interactive document spaces

Traditional document systems use hierarchical filing structures as the basis for organizing, storing and retrieving documents. However, this structure is very limited in comparison with the rich and varied forms of document interaction and category management in everyday document use. Presto is a prototype document management system providing rich interaction with documents through meaningful, user-level document attributes, such as “Word file,” “published paper,” “shared with Jim,” “about Presto,” or “currently in progress” Document attributes capture the multiple different roles that a single document might play, and they allow users to rapidly reorganize their document space for the task at hand. They also provide a basis for novel document systems design and new approaches to document management and interaction. In this article, we outline the motivations behind this approach, describe the principal components of our implementation, discuss architectural consequences, and show how these support new forms of interactions with large personal document spaces.

Using properties for uniform interaction in the Presto document system

Most document or information management systems rely on hierarchies to organise documents (e.g. files, email messages or web bookmarks). However, the rigid structures of hierarchical schemes do not mesh well with the more fluid nature of everyday document practices. This paper describes Presto, a prototype system that allows users to organise their documents entirely in terms of the properties those documents hold for users. Properties provide a uniform mechanism for managing, coding, searching, retrieving and interacting with documents. We concentrate in particular on the challenges that property-based approaches present and the architecture we have developed to tackle them.

A programming model for active documents

Traditionally, designers organize software system as active end-points (e.g. applications) linked by passive infrastructures (e.g. networks). Increasingly, however, networks and infrastructures are becoming active components that contribute directly to application behavior. Amongst the various problems that this presents is the question of how such active infrastructures should be programmed. We have been developing an active document management system called Placeless Documents. Its programming model is organized in terms of properties that actively contribute to the functionality and behavior of the documents to which they are attached. This paper discusses active properties and their use as a programming model for active infrastructures. We have found that active properties enable the creation of persistent, autonomous active entities in document systems, independent of specific repositories and applications, but present challenges for managing problems of composition.

SWEETPEA: software tools for programmable embodied agents

Programmable Embodied Agents are portable, wireless, interactivedevices embodying specific, differentiable, interactivecharacteristics. They take the form of identifiable characters whoreside in the physical world and interact directly with users. Theycan act as an out-of-band communication channel between users, asproxies for system components or other users, or in a variety ofother roles. Traditionally, research into such devices has beenbased on costly custom hardware. In this paper, we report on ourexplorations of the space of physical character-based interfacesbuilt on recently available stock consumer hardware platforms,structured around an initial framework of applications.