3 Authoring with AsTMa=

AsTMa= is a line oriented notation to code topics and associations within a document. The line-oriented character allows to reduce the number of symbols in the language which - in turn - reduces the amount to type significantly compared to XTM, or even LTM.

To define a topic one simply states a topic id and then one (or more) classes that topic should be an instance of:

osi-model (networking-model)

To add topic characteristics, say basenames and occurrences, you would do that on follow-up lines:

osi-model (networking-model)
bn: OSI Model, Open Systems Interconnection
oc: http://www.cisco.com/univercd/cc/td/doc/cisintwk/ito_doc/introint.htm#xtocid5

AsTMa= allows you also to type the occurrences, use inline text (aka resourceData occurrences) and to scope all of this. Additionally you can specify subject indicators and subject identifiers if you want to reify an (external) object.

Naturally AsTMa= also provides a construct for expressing associations:

(is-placed-atop)
upper: datalink-layer
lower: physical-layer

This association of type is-placed-atop has two members: one has the role upper played by the topic datalink-layer, the other member has physical-layer playing the role lower.

It is assumed that all these topics are declared like the osi-model above; AsTMa= processors are allowed, though, to automatically generate topics in a topic map, even though you have not explicitely defined them.

Aside from some technical issues AsTMa= has proven to be useful in an academic environment to manage some part of knowledge. The conciseness of the language reduces the typing effort to 30-40% percent compared to that of maps authored in XTM. Maps authored in AsTMa= are usually about 25% in length (number of lines). This ratio may increase if auto completion (automatic generation of undeclared) is used.

AsTMa= authored maps can be converted into XTM using the online converter or the Perl XTM package.

Copyright © 2003 Robert Barta

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