This Developer's Guide is intended to provide a reference for programmers who wish to create new programs using TM4J or who wish to create customisations of the various applications distributed with the TM4J package. This document assumes that the reader is already somewhat familiar with the basic concepts of topic maps and also with the syntax of Java programs.

There are a number of online tutorials to get you started with the basic concepts of topic maps, and if you are not yet familiar with them, we strongly advise that you take a look at these before getting too deeply into TM4J. Google for "topic maps tutorials", or check out these basic introductory texts: