News

TopicMap Filesystem: now in CPAN (14.12.2009, az)

The TMFS code was recently cleaned up and published as Perl module in the usual place, CPAN.

TopicMap Filesystem (26.11.2008, az)

We have developed a filesystem for accessing and modifying TopicMaps, where topics and associations are displayed as files, directories and symlinks; with this mechanism one can conveniently use find, cat, ls and friends to retrieve and modify elements of a map.

The development was described in a paper presented at TMRA 2008. The implementation is based on FUSE and requires Perl, FUSE and our TM module. The (slightly rough) code is available here.

(Please note that the representation of topics in the filesystem has evolved somewhat since the paper was written.)

Map Visualization with SVG (29.2.2008, az)

We now offer a visual representation of topic relationships in the form of SVG graphs for all maps in our Map Development Area.

TM View Software (7.12.2007, az)

The software we use to produce views and slides of maps in the Map Development Area is now publicly available: TM::View adds serialization and layout style features to our main topicmap software suite TM.

Further MDA Changes (15.11.2007, az)

The Map Development Area now offers more differtiated access privileges and better indices of the public maps. Please contact me if you are interested in contributing to our map body and want an account.

MDA resurrected (12.10.2007, az)

After a hiatus due to reworking of the portal innards for using the TM backend (instead of the ancient XTM), the map development area is back in action. Some minor new features were added.

Quite a number of people store their topic maps in relational databases. This is all well and good, but when it comes to retrieving the content effectively, I do not think that SQL is a convenient and adequate query language. This opinionated, tongue-in-cheek rant tries to compile all arguments so far why an SQL model as suggested with TMRQL is good as implementation but not good for a TM query language.

As our TM server exists for quite some years, we have collected some experiences.

Path Language for TMQL (rho)

This is a pleading for a path language to be a strong component in TMQL, the Topic Map Query Language.

More public maps available (rho)

As a byproduct of teaching activities and also student research projects we have created topic maps about Internet Technologies, the Semantic Web and - of course - Topic Maps. We have now published the maps (and also slide shows generated from them).

AsTMa* TM Engineering, Part II (rho)

In this second installment we outline how an ontology for the literature topic map can be built with AsTMa*.

AsTMa* TM Engineering (rho)

TM engineering is certainly not only about authoring topic maps. In this first installment (out of 3) we at Bond make our case how AsTMa* can be used in engineering a literature reference database.

A few people are confused about the various ways a Topic Map author may provide information about the identity of the subjects he is covering within the map. This tutorial tries to explain the underlying concepts and demonstrates how subject identifiers and subject indicators can be used in XTM.

When you consider to distribute content to subscribers your current choice might be RSS for simple headline syndication. In this article we demonstrate how a translation between RSS and TMSS, a Topic Map based incarnation of headline syndication might be integrated into today's web sites. In the course we present a constraint language for Topic Maps which may be used for a richer and more flexible content transfer.

For beginners the distinction between 'instance-of' and 'subclass' poses often a high entrance barrier to author quality maps. This article tries to demonstrate typical uses of these predefined association types.

When developing Topic Map based applications it is indispensable to deal with the data structures the underlying API provides to the programmer. This article tries to demonstrate how this can be accomplished with a significant abstraction using an XPath derivate, XTMPath.

AsTMa= Tutorial (rho)

This new tutorial will walk over the most important concepts of Topic Map authoring using the AsTMa= notation.

Qualifying Associations (rho)

While associations usually link together topics, they themselves can take part in other associations.

XTM Tutorial refurbished (rho)

Our popular beginner's tutorial is available again.

Site Relaunch (rho)

After quite some background activity (completely new technology, new design, new content management) the site is going public.