[topicmapmail] More newbie than Josema?

[Kal Ahmed]

Hi Fabrizio

I would recommend looking at [1] and [2] for a start. There are probably
some other introductory texts that other people can recommend too. 

Then when you are ready to get started in writing and using topic maps,
the next steps depend a bit on your level of programming experience.
TMTab [3] lets you use the Protege editor to create topic maps without
having to worry about the XTM syntax (though you will have to understand
the basics of the topic map model to use it successfully). There are a
host of other free tools for creating topic maps including xSiteable [4]
and TM4JScript [5]. For viewing the things you write, TM4JScript and
xSiteable both work, but with limitations. TMNav gives you a dynamic
graph view of your topic map and works with XTM files. Ontopia's
Omnigator is a freedownload and works with both XTM and Ontopia's
text-based syntax LTM (which is a lot easier to write by hand than XTM).
If you want to write code to manipulate topic maps, check out TM4J [7]

With one (or more!) of those tools in hand, start mapping! Feel free to
post questions as you come across them on this list.

Cheers,

Kal

[1] http://www.ontopia.net/topicmaps/materials/tao.html
[2] http://www.techquila.com/practical_intro.html
[3] http://www.techquila.com/tmtab.html
[4] http://www.shelter.nu/xsiteable/
[5] http://tm4jscript.sourceforge.net
[6]
https://sourceforge.net/project/showfiles.php?group_id=27895&release_id=156533
[7] http://tm4j.org/


On Wed, 2003-10-15 at 15:52, fabrizio ulisse wrote:
> Hello topicmappers,
> 
> I'm an IA from Italy, very very newbie about topic maps and related
> stuff, but very very interested in general concepts behind this new
> tool? technology? Philosophy? Choose all that apply :)
> 
> This year I also had the chance to talk about Topic Maps during a
> lecture at the University o Milan (MIU - Master in IT for humanists
> http://www.disco.unimib.it/mastermiu/), about the promise of semantic
> web as a corner stone for a glorious future of a web based on rich
> concepts vs. dull data. 
> 
> But, after the theory there's practice (and B. Sterling will excuse me
> if I revert the order of pop culture), and I really would like to go
> deep inside this issue, starting with real xml coding, and this is where
> I stopped - maybe too stupid? My primary concern is that I cannot figure
> out how to practically start mapping stuff. I can see myself flying over
> immense territories, seeing complex many-to-many relations between
> territories (forgive my ugly poetry, it's been a hard day), but then I
> have to fly down and start conceptualize, and the kind of answers to
> Josema didn't help me.
> 
> So, can someone help me start from... somewhere? 
> 
> Thanks to anyone for the patience to read this nonsense 'til here :)
> 
> - fabrizio ulisse
>   www.architecto.org
> 
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-- 
Kal Ahmed <kal@techquila.com>
techquila