Features of the Software Component Information System
- Contains descriptions of different types of reusable components containing all relevant information
- Product name
- Short description
- Type of component (class, class library, ActiveX, OCX, JavaBean, ...)
- Supported programming languages and compilers
- Application domain and attributes which are important/specific for the application domains
- Hardware and software requirements
- Supply sources (producer, distributers, information if product is public domain / share ware)
- Experience other members of REGINA gained using the software component
- Links to other software components contained in the information system
- Links to related sites (e.g. for online purchase), newsgroups in the Internet
- Web-based user interface (HTML forms and Java)
- user-friendly,
- intuitive, and
- uniform
- Consideration of the evolution of the classification schema
- Access restricted to registered users
- Access rights and views depending on user groups and user profiles
- Different search mechanisms depending on the knowledge the user has
- navigation,
- keyword search,
- filtered search,
- refinements,
- synonyms
- Online registration / change of product data, user data, supply sources
- Mechanisms for exchanging experiences
- experience reports
- registration of contact persons
- Administration
- Collection of statistical data related to accesses to component descriptions and navigation paths, unsuccessful search strings
- Check whether Web links are still valid
- Automatic notification via email caused by predefined events
- Automatic search for component descriptions using search engines
- (Semi-)automatic classification using Web-documents