17 Using the Amadeus client

Thomas Dietinger, Gerbert Orasche

Amadeus is the first Hyper-G PC client for Microsoft Windows. It is designed to make most of the features of Hyper-G available to a broad range of users. Because it should be seen not only as a viewer, but also as an authoring tool for those who are not computer science specialists, one of the key features is its user friendliness. Another important point is that it works on standard PCs and not just on high-end machines. Last but not least, it is implemented in very modular form to ease maintenance and extensions.

Some of the key features of Amadeus are:

native 32-bit (Windows 95/Windows NT 3.51) application. It runs also under Windows 3.1x with the help of the Win32s extension;
easy to use installation program;
typical Windows-like features:
- MDI (multiple document interface);
- dockable toolbar with toolbar-tips;
- context-sensitive pop-up menus;
- extensive online help and so on.
numerous built-in document viewers for several data formats:
- text (HTML, generic SGML);
- raster-images (GIF, JPEG, TIFF, PCX, BMP, XBM, ...);
- movies (MPEG, AVI);
- PostScript documents (PostScript 1 and 2, PDF in preparation);
- 3D scenes (VRML and SDF).
built-in converters from RTF (Rich Text Format) to HTML. With these you can use ordinary word processors (that are capable of saving text in RTF) to create new text documents for Hyper-G. For Microsoft Word, a separate document template is available which, in conjunction with another converter, makes it very easy to create professional text layouts.

This chapter gives a quick overview of how to use Amadeus. It will explain how to benefit from the hierarchical structure of Hyper-G, how to surf through the information space using links and how to find what you are interested in using the powerful search capabilities of Hyper-G. The second part of the chapter explains each of the several built-in viewers in detail.

Amadeus can be used freely by everyone. For commercial use (for example, resale after adoptions or changes) contact the Hyper-G Consortium; see Appendix C. You can find Amadeus on the CD-ROM that comes with this book (see Appendix B) or you may download the current version via anonymous FTP from our FTP server iicm.tu-graz.ac.at in the directory /pub/Hyper-G/Amadeus. This is also the place where you will find the PostScript version of the Amadeus manual.

17.1 Navigation and browsing

17.2 Viewer and player descriptions

17.3 Outlook

17.4 Further reading