A flexible browsing framework for the Morpheus transform repository

Abstract

This thesis describes the design and implementation of a flexible browsing framework for the Morpheus project. The goal of the Morpheus project is to address the problem of heterogeneous information integration by providing a central repository for database transforms and data types, and storing metadata associated with each object, such as author, name, description, etc. One of the central features of Morpheus is the ability to explore the repository graphically by using this associated metadata. The framework described in this thesis provides an extensible interface for searching and browsing the repository visually, and comprises both back-end components that integrate with the repository as well as a full graphical user interface. The framework is designed to seamlessly integrate browsing and searching by means of user-defined search filters that restrict which results are displayed. We also introduce the concept of a named query, an object that associates a set of filters with a name. This allows the same set of results to be displayed in different ways by different browsers. Finally, three example browser implementations are presented to demonstrate the framework in use.