The present invention addresses the critical needs of publishers seeking to create and publish hypermedia content in electronic form across the wide area networks ("WAN's") such as the World Wide Web. Toward this end, a client-server development platform is provided for handling the important functions of document authoring, content-based indexing and retrieval of documents, management and control of proprietary assets, and a support for developing form-driven interactive services, all in a manner that is uniquely and seamlessly WAN-integrated.