  A consensus is emerging that continuous (or metric) measures can be useful in
phylogenetic systematics. Many of the methods for coding such characters, how-
ever, employ elements that are arbitrary and therefore should be excluded from
use in cladistic analysis. The continued use of such potentially inappropriate
methods can be attributed to either their simplicity or the availability of
computer programs specifically designed to produce data matrices using these
methods. Conversely, one of the most suitable methods, homogeneous subset
coding (HSC), is underused, probably due to the lack of a suitable software
implementation for this somewhat complex procedure.
  This paper describes TaxMan, a Web-based facility for the coding of
continuous data using HSC. Data are entered using a form accessible via any
internet browser and are automatically converted to a matrix suitable for input
into tree-searching software. This implementation of the HSC technique provides
an uncomplicated procedure for the incorporation of metric data in phylogenetic
systematics. The algorithmic implementation of the HSC procedure, and
interpolation of the Studentised range and maximum modulus distributions
required by it, is described in detail in appendices.
