Hypercharts: extended statecharts to support hypermedia specification

• Published in: IEEE transactions on software engineering Vol. 25; no. 1; pp. 33 - 49
• Main Authors: Borges Paulo, F., Masiero, P.C., Ferreira de Oliveira, M.C.
• Format: Journal Article Conference Proceeding
• Language: English
• Published: New York, NY IEEE 01.01.1999; Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers; IEEE Computer Society
• Subjects: Applied sciences; Computer science; Computer science; control theory; systems; Computer systems and distributed systems. User interface; Construction; Distributed databases; Exact sciences and technology; Formalism; History; Human-computer interaction; Hypermedia; Hypertext; Information retrieval; Internet; Multimedia; Multimedia databases; Navigation; Semantics; Software; Software engineering; Specifications; Statecharts; Studies; Synchronism; Synchronization; Timing; Web sites; Writing; System architecture; Parametrization; Software development; Hypermedia; Distributed system; Synchronization; Modeling; Implementation; Computer network; Semantics; Formal specification; Software engineering; Petri net
• ISSN: 0098-5589; 1939-3520
• DOI: 10.1109/32.748917

Introduces hypercharts, a novel and effective notation that extends the well-known statechart formalism to make it suitable for the specification of temporal and information synchronization requirements of hypermedia applications. Three new definitions are added: timed history, timed transitions, and a set of synchronization mechanisms. The proposed extensions are based on the major characteristics of some Petri net-based multimedia models, and have their semantics described in terms of conventional statechart models. Therefore, any hyperchart construction can be transformed into a statechart that exhibits the desired behavior, giving hyperchart models the same semantic behavior as statecharts. The new constructs are illustrated using a case study based on a hypermedia-modeling example.