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Aucbvax.2242 fa.works utzoo!duke!decvax!ucbvax!works Sun Jul 12 05:09:59 1981 Automated desk >From wilson@CCA-UNIX Sun Jul 12 05:03:45 1981 The problem of keeping track of what quickly becomes a multidimensional space is one we faced in the extensions of Negroponte's work in our SDMS and VIEW systems. For SDMS we approached it by providing two kinds of "world maps". The first is simply a synopsis of the contents of the current work space. Thus if you are doing several related things in this single space (eg. building different portions of a large program), you can always find from the world view (shown on a separate screen at all times) where the other portions reside. The second type of world map is a side view of all of the work spaces arranged into a tree ( or network ). This shows a box with a label for each work space, lines showing the connections between work spaces, and a highlight for the work space where you currently reside. The user can switch between world maps at the push of a function button.

This is only a partial solution to the problem, as it does not capture any of the real semantics of the situation. For example you do not know how you got to the current work space, or any of the contextual information associated with the current instance of the work space. These are issues that we are currently addressing in VIEW, but I have no fabulous insights to report yet.

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