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Figure 2: The W3DT Web-Designer Show<strong>in</strong>g a Model of the Cybersound Site<br />

The Template Employee is l<strong>in</strong>ked to the Index Staff by means of a Dynamic L<strong>in</strong>k. The mean<strong>in</strong>g of this construct<br />

is straightforward: The Index conta<strong>in</strong>s a static list of all employees (whenever a new employee is hired,<br />

this list has to be updated manually). The user can choose one of the names presented <strong>in</strong> this list and will get<br />

further <strong>in</strong><strong>format</strong>ion on the selected person from the database. This dynamically generated Page is modeled by<br />

the Template Employee.<br />

F<strong>in</strong>ally, the model shown <strong>in</strong> figure 2 conta<strong>in</strong>s the Diagram Concerts, referr<strong>in</strong>g to a submodel which describes<br />

this doma<strong>in</strong> <strong>in</strong> more detail.<br />

This small example gives an impression of the W3DT model<strong>in</strong>g constructs. The W3DT model<strong>in</strong>g technique is<br />

described <strong>in</strong> more detail <strong>in</strong> [Bichler and Nusser 1996]. In the next section we will show how the Web-Designer<br />

can be used to generate a runn<strong>in</strong>g prototype of the specified <strong>in</strong><strong>format</strong>ion stem. sy<br />

Computer Aided Web Development with the W3DT Web-Designer<br />

There are several ways to support a developer <strong>in</strong> the design phase. Of course a formal design methodology is<br />

an important part. But to push efficiency <strong>in</strong> this development step, a computer aided design tool for WWWbased<br />

<strong>in</strong><strong>format</strong>ion systems is needed. Figure 2 shows a screen shot of the W3DT Web-Designer, a CASE-tool<br />

for the WWW. In develop<strong>in</strong>g the Web-Designer we had the follow<strong>in</strong>g goals <strong>in</strong> m<strong>in</strong>d:<br />

• A tool should completely support the graphical notation of the design methodology.<br />

• The def<strong>in</strong>ition of Layouts (comparable to the style-sheets of HTML 3.0) should facilitate the design of uniformly<br />

look<strong>in</strong>g Pages throughout the whole site. Although the pages generated by the Web-Designer are<br />

only a skeleton which is completed by means on an HTML-editor, this feature has proven to be very useful<br />

if a large number of files are <strong>in</strong>volved.<br />

• The user should be able to generate a runn<strong>in</strong>g system at any time throughout the design process. Thus we<br />

have fast feedback loops on each design decision.<br />

• Us<strong>in</strong>g the HTML-pages and CGI-scripts generated by such a CASE-tool, developers should have the possibility<br />

to better communicate their ideas to other people. In short we <strong>in</strong>tended to provide a powerful proto-

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