Site Review: Comprehensive Composite Materials
Elsevier recently published Comprehensive Composite Materials, a six-volume encyclopedic work covering all aspects of composites, from theory to practical applications. A unique feature of this work is simultaneous publication on the Internet. Purchasers of the CCM receive a site license for online access.
Information on purchasing the CCM is available from Elsevier. This page contains information on the contents and pricing, as well as screen shots and sample pages. A free trial of the online version is available until the end of February 2001. After registering, you should be sent an access key. I did not receive the key and had to request it via e-mail.
When reviewing the site, I had some difficulties logging in. Using Internet Explorer 5.0, I received error messages saying my browser would not accept cookies. I did have cookies turned on, and in fact had logged in earlier in the day using the same browser. To complete the review, I had to log in using Netscape 6.0. Any difficulties with the functioning of the site may be browser specific, but I was unable to test the functions in multiple browsers.
Overview
The CCM screen is divided into three sections. The top section has a search box on the left and an information box on the right. The middle section has seven navigation buttons: author index, subject index, table of contents, general information, view printed format, view full screen and view cross references.
The bottom section is divided into two frames. The left frame shows the table of contents in a tree view; the right frame shows the text of the current section. The site opens with the general information view, which provides links to information about the editorial board, links to help topics and a copy of the site license agreement.
Navigation
The CCM can be navigated in one of several ways. The simplest is to use the table of contents, which can be displayed in a tree view in the contents frame. Expanding any of the volumes (only one volume can be expanded at a time) shows a list of chapters in that volume. Clicking on a chapter displays the contents in the text frame. Volumes are labeled by number only, so you will have to remember the general topic of each volume.
Individual chapters are lengthy, and can be slow to load because of the number of images required. Be sure to set your browser up to display text while images are downloading, or you will face a delay while the page is being rendered.
The author index is also shown in a tree view, with one node per letter of the alphabet. Expanding a letter brings up a list of authors whose last names begin with that letter. Individual author names can also be expanded to show the sections they have written. Sections are of course linked to bring up the contents in the text frame. Author names are linked to bring up contact information (name e-mail address, affiliation). Contact information is loaded in a pop-up window. The author index also includes a search box that can be used to search for names.
The subject index is similar to the author index. The top level tree view shows a node for each letter of the alphabet. Each letter is further divided into subsections. For example, "P" is divided as "PA-PC," "PE-PH," etc. Subsections contain individual terms with links to relevant sections of the book (some terms are further subdivided, and their nodes must be expanded individually). The links point directly to the appropriate subsection within a section. As with the author index, the subject index includes a search box.
The navigation code is not smart enough to recognize the section loaded in the text frame, so it will reload a section just to jump to an appropriate point. For example, I had section 5.09 loaded in the text frame. I then looked up a term in the index that pointed to section 5.09.5.4. When I clicked on that link, the entire section was reloaded instead of jumping right to the appropriate point. It wasn't quite as slow as the initial download because all of the images had been cached, but it was still slower than necessary.
Text Frame
Contents are displayed in the right hand text frame, one chapter at a time. Each section begins with a full table of contents, displayed in the text frame and not the contents frame. Subsection titles are hyperlinked, so you can quickly jump to the appropriate portion of the text.
Equations are shown as GIF images, and the quality is quite good. Tables are shown as HTML tables. Figures are also shown as GIFs, but at thumbnail size to minimize download time. Clicking on an figure brings up the full size image in the text frame. It would be better to show the image in a separate pop-up window, so it could be viewed in the context of the text.
The latter method is how references are shown. All references for a section are listed at the end of the text. Citations are also hyperlinked within the text, and clicking on a citation brings up the reference in a pop-up window.
I had some difficulties in viewing full size figures. They displayed without a problem in the text frame. When I tried to go back to the text, though, the Back button worked erratically. Most of the time it did nothing at all. Sometimes, though, it would display the text in the contents frame. The only way I could get the display back to normal was to go back to the main contents, then reload the chapter. Because images are linked from specific text locations, a better interface would be to provide a back button or link when a figure is shown in the text frame.
Also, the browser icon does not always animate while a page is downloading. That makes it difficult to know when a page has completed loading. For example, I have opened Chapter 1.17, "Laminated Plate and Shell Theory." It appears to have completed loading - the browser looks idle and my modem connection shows no activity - but some equations and thumbnail images are missing. I don't know if that's a true page error, though, because the browser usually appears idle as a page is downloading. Some sort of status icon in the navigation frame would be useful in these situations.
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