Designing and implementing modeling frontends for domains in which
text is predominant (it may be informal, semi-formal or formal) can and should benefit from using the evolving standard mark-up
languages (
SMGML and
XML), since standardization of interfaces, transmission and storage protocols as well as many valuable tools “come for free”.
But the idiosyncratics of the existing mark-up concepts neither provide a structure clean enough to serve as foundation for
syntax and semantics of exact modeling frontends, nor do they offer an input format feasible for text-based data maintanance.
Direct Document Denotation (DDD) as presented in this paper tries to remedy these defects: (1) it abstracts from the rough edges of XML, (2) it realizes
a practical frontend processor for denotation of structured documents with special considerations to disabled users and voice
controlled input, — and (3) is described completely and mathematically precise as a small system of transformation relations.
The theoretical basics and practical issues of DDD are discussed and a case study is reported.