The HyperReader script attempts to read Bookreader format documents and present them as browser documents.

Also refer to the description (including the limitations) of the server.

Document Pages

The Hypertext interface should be intuitive enough to use. Documents are presented as a series of "pages", similar to Bookreader. The title of the book is presented across the top of the page, a series of buttons allow easy navigation of the book, the page content is presented between these and a second set of navigation buttons across the bottom of the page.

Table of Contents

The document is opened showing the Table of Contents. From here any portion of the book can be selected.

Navigation Buttons

The series of "buttons" are displayed top and bottom of each page, which when highlighted as a link provide provide direct access to other portions of the book.

Hotspots

Bookreader documents include hotspots, allowing the reader to jump to other portions of the document. HyperReader implements these as highlighted links.

Figures and Graphics

Images are presented inline or as "popups", as per Bookreader. Of course images may be saved locally using the specific brower's method. For example Netscape Navigator allows image saving using a right-click mouse operation when pointing over an image.

Download Button

Bookreader books are RMS variable record files which when downloaded by a VMS web server generally have the content modified into stream format, breaking the file structure. While HyperReader can read books in stream record format, BookReader and possibly other utilities cannot.

Stream format can be reverted using the FIX_BOOK.MAR utility included with the HyperReader source code, also available from https://eisner.encompasserve.org/~halle/fix_book.mar.

The Download button provides an alternative mechanism for obtaining a local copy of a book. A byte-for-byte copy of the file is provided where the VAR record format data remains intact. For most VMS environments all that remains is for the on-VMS-disk file to have its metadata modified to represent the content. This simply can be done with

   $ set file /attr=(rfm:var,rat:none,lrl:32254) <book-file-name>

Close Button

This button returns the browser to the shelf or other page the book was opened from.