List of Functions

Heurist represents three years of intensive user-driven development. As a result it has a feature-set second to none. The following is a concise list of the current range of functions offered by Heurist. It is not comprehensive and inevitably rates minor and major functions equally. Updated Sep 2008.

Record Types and Fields

Flexible definition of record types (currently nearly 100) defined within database

New record/field types can be added instantly via web browser administrative interface

Standard field types – constrained or free text, numeric, date, y/n, enumerated lists

Geographic object type for inclusion of geographic information (multiple objects/record)

Attached resources (text files, PDFs, images, audio, video) with rendering of thumbnails

Pointer field types reference other records in the database eg. ‘author’ references persons

Referencing other records rather than creating lookup tables reduces data redundancy

Fields can be set to required, recommended or optional

Fields can be set to single value or repeatable

Fields can be re-used in multiple record types - naming and prompts set per record type

Composite titles constructed from field values eg. author, year, title, journal, volume

All record types include extended text and discussion area

Granular text block-level ownership/permissions on WYSIWYG extended text

Insertion of multimedia in extended text through reference to resources stored as records

Blog Functions

Rich, flexible blog view provides unique functionality not available in other blogs

Blog entries implemented as a standard record type with all standard functions

Blog entries behave like any other – search, tag, link, share, geographically locate etc.

Blog entry uses standard extended text field, comments use standard discussion field

Blog entries can be shared across blogs simply by bookmarking

Blog view can display non-blog record types, including standard field data (in development)

Blog view can display related records, hyperlinks, record thumbnails, map etc. (in development)

Shared workgroup blogs allow editing by any member of workgroup

Personal Bookmarks

Personal ‘favourites’ homepage puts most commonly used resources one click away

Bookmarking of records allows development of a personal subset of the shared database

Tagging with multi-word tags, tag disambiguation and clickable lists of suggestions

Tag management (popularity, deletion, combining, renaming)

Instant search by tags, incl. partial matching, following tags to related records

Rating of records, sorting of search results by ratings

Storage of personal password reminders attached to bookmarks for passworded resources

Creation of personal saved searches grouping records for particular purposes

Single-click on multiple records - tag, keyword, change ownership, (un)bookmark, delete

Data Collection, Harvesting, Editing

Bookmark current web page and capture data from it

Harvest web links and text from current web page

Identification of similar web pages to reduce duplication of bookmarks

Import bibliographic formats with disambiguation to reduce duplication

Import CSV (text) and KML (geographic data) from files

Partial string matching of titles, tags, keywords, special fields, all fields

Comparison operators on numeric fields and dates, including relative to ‘today’

Filter for records of specified types or bookmarked by specific users

Sorting by text, date, popularity, date of addition and modification, specific fields etc.

Search across personal bookmarks, whole database or the web with one click

Search parameters can be saved as saved searches for personal or shared workgroup use

View full data for a record within search results without loading separate page

Explore related records through tag following, see records bookmarked by other users

One-click access to page history though the Wayback Machine

Automated verification and flagging of broken URLs

Relationships/Linking

Relationship records record linkages incl. relationship type, date range, label, annotations

Relationships between heterogeneous records eg. event with person, chapter with book

Addition of relationships through search in database for related records

Report formats controlled drill down into relationships to render data from related records

Relationship browser view allows navigation of collections through relationships

Bibliographic Functions

Import/export bibliographic exchange formats (currently EndNote Refer and XML)

Automatic identification and disambiguation of imported bibliographic types

Authors stored as person records allowing rich complementary data

Series, Journals, Publishers stored as separate records to eliminate data redundancy

Synchronise with Zotero database (widely used Firefox academic bibliographic plugin)

Bibliographic output formatting through XSLT

Plugin for MS Word allowing search/insert references and generation of bibliography

Pre-defined domain profiles with collections of useful references, tags and searches

Workgroup/Colleague Group Functions

Create and manage workgroups (admins) and colleague groups (individual users)

Define shared keywords for each workgroup, usable only by members of the workgroup

Use shared keywords to create controlled lists of resources for publication in web sites

Save search parameters as named searches visible to all members of workgroup

Create workgroup-owned records, protect from modification or hide from non-members

Workgroup home page provides workgroup-specific information and resources

Override record type definitions for specific user groups, add/delete/rename fields

Display subset of record types for a specific group of users, cumulate groups

Notification Triggers

Notify a user, a workgroup or a colleague group about multiple records of interest

Three-click bookmarking from notifications received

Notify at specified intervals (specific date, daily, weekly, monthly, yearly)

Social Bookmarking Functions

Search across all users’ keywords and tags

Tag following to discover new resources or retrieve all records similar to current record

Find colleagues with similar tagging patterns

Dynamic Data Publishing

Search parameters can be saved as saved searches and instantly published as live searches

Publishing wizard generates html code embedding live searches in user’s web pages

XSLT stylesheets allow rendering search results in a variety of formats (extensible)

Raw XML output of search results, RSS feeds, allow serving data to other applications

One-click map/timeline from any search result using Google Maps or Google Earth

Generates html code for embedding interactive map/timeline in user’s web pages

Configuration and Multiple Instances

Define new field/record types through browser without program modification

Changing database definitions does not invalidate existing data

Creation of multiple instances with separate databases for new projects

Record definitions are shared across instances but can be overridden within each instance

Programming API (HAPI)

JavaScript API allowing web pages to access Heurist data independent of internals

Can run on any server - need not be on the server holding the Heurist database

Access to the database is controlled by a key locking access to specified servers

Implements Heurist security model to determine read/write access to the data

Allows searching, reading, writing of data objects in a Heurist database

Makes programming of Heurist applications (relatively) simple