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Hyperspace
A web application prototyping facilitator
More information
Hyperspace has five types of nodes. Understanding the purpose of each node is easy
and will be illustrated here. The nodes appear in the diagram below. The relationship
between each node type is shown with the "one to many" connectors. The arrows signify
how each node can choose a layout node.
The business rules defining all content are:
A project node has one or more layout nodes. A project node has one or more use
case nodes. A use case node has one or more scenario nodes. A scenario node has
one or more illustration nodes. The default layout node is determined by the project
node but any node may override the layout.
The fundamental methodology of Hyperspace is the concept of an illustration node
inheriting from a scenario node which in turn inherits from a use case node which
in turn inherits from a project node. Additionally each node in the inheritance
hierarchy can selectively choose which layout node to inherit from. If a node does
not select a layout node explicitly, it implicitly inherits its layout from a parent.
Why many layouts?
You may be asking why does Hyperspace allow for many layout nodes?
Many
web applications are expected to change their layout when the user
accesses certain features
or when the user reaches a new application context.
For example: The application may have a different layout before login
compared to the layout after
login. Also, the particular function (eg. a report) may require more horizontal
space and therefore need to suppress or compress the menu area. Also, illustrations
of printer friendly functions require vastly different layouts compared to regular
functionality.
A layout node may contain HTML that defines the header block, menu block, main area
placeholder, footer block and any other static area of the web application.
After defining multiple layouts, an illustration can point to any layout without
complicating the functional area of the illustration.
Exceptions to the rule
Whenever there is a rule there may be need to break the rule. Breaking rules do
however increase complexity, so one should attempt to avoid exceptions. One exception
that was thought to be a worthwhile addition to Hyperspace is the element override
feature. You should only approach this feature once you have a firm understanding
of the more basic features. The element override feature gives you the ability to
override an HTML element's properties even though the element was inherited from
another node.
Read more about element override feature
here
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