Mobile agent-based compound documents

This paper presents a mobile agent-based framework for building mobile compound document, which can each be dynamically composed of mobile agents and can migrate itself over a network as a whole, with all its embedded agents. The key of this framework is that it builds a hierarchical mobile agent system that enables multiple mobile agents to be combined into a single mobile agent. The framework also provides several value-added mechanisms for visually manipulating components embedded in a compound document and for sharing a window on the screen among the components. This paper describes this framework and some experiences in the implementation of a prototype system, currently using Java the both implementation language and component development language, and then illustrates several interesting applications to demonstrate the framework's utility and flexibility.