Abstract

By using the World Wide Web (WWW), it has become easy to access information which is distributed over the entire Internet. However, due to the immense and rapidly growing supply of information, the Web Site may contain multiple data types in distinct heterogeneous sources, and stored under different formats. It is impossible to rely on the Web browser to access multimedia database on the Internet, and to view a variety of file formats. For many years, people have been seeking a file browser which is able to access multimedia database, and to display multiple files. In this thesis, the file browsers, which are used to represent various type of files, are reviewed and five type of file formats are presented. The thesis develops a file browser which allows the user to view the contents of a file quickly without having to run the original application that created the file. The file browser provides the user interface for viewing a file, including menu items and toolbar. Demonstrations are also given to show how the different files are displayed in the single software tool. Furthermore, a file import filter for the display of the documents created by the word processor, Ami Pro, is implemented. To further this study, a prospect of the application of the file browser are proposed and briefly described. The result shows that methodologies discussed in this thesis are both feasible and practical. There is hope that such an exploitation will lead to a more efficient file browser of dealing with the apparent flood of formats of information.