CoVer: a contextual version server for hypertext applications

Abstract

Key problems of version support for hypertext systems arise from the fine-grained, heavily interlinked structure of hyperdocuments. Integration of version support aggravates cognitive overhead problems during version creation and disorientation during version selection. Starting from the need to support versioning in our hypermedia publishing environment, we designed the CoVer hypermedia version. server. CoVer maintains context information with the versions that guides version creation and in particular helps in version identification. The key concept is task tracking: Users change their network in order to perform a task. These tasks can guide meaningful, automatic version creation. Being stored persistently as contextual version information they serve version identification. Moreover, CoVer maintains the derivation history of hyperdocuments across document boundaries and tracks the influence of annotations on the creation of new versions and the start-up of new tasks.