A Database-Centric and Web-Automatic Hypertext Application Design Method
With the evolution of World Wide Web from the simple delivery mechanism to a platform for complex business applications, Web-based business computing is already seen as a new competitive business weapon. The potential commercial payoff of WWW application attracts more and more organizations to build their own web sites and develop business-to-business or business-to-consumer applications on the Internet. Designing Web applications has become a critical corporate strategic issue. However, current methods of modeling and designing hypertext applications are in chaotic and ad-hoc nature. These approaches lack the stringent and rigorous system analysis and design principles. Special efforts are needed to develop a formal method to support the modeling and design of hypertext applications. This research aims to tackle this important issue and propose an effective and efficient design alternative. We build a toolkit prototype that implements the design method we present. This toolkit is easy to use and to integrate with SQL compliant database systems. We develop a Web hypertext design method called the database-centric Web hypertext design method (DWHDM) to approach Web page requirements analysis, Web hypertext navigation design, Web page template generation, and hypertext information system maintenance. We adopt UML class diagram, state diagram, and sequence diagram to capture user requirements and application characteristics. We use a relational or object-relational database system to serve as the integrating design repository.