Creating Web Services From GUI-Based Applications

Abstract

Graphical user interface (GUI) applications (GAPs) are ubiquitous and provide various services. However, it is difficult to make GAPs exchange information (i.e., interoperate) especially if they are closed and monolithic. Unlike GAPs, Web services are applications that are designed to interoperate over the Internet. Thus a fundamental problem of interoperability is how to reengineer GAPs into Web services efficiently and noninvasively. We propose a novel generic approach for creating Web services from GAPs. This approach combines a nonstandard use of accessibility technologies for accessing and controlling GAPs in a uniform way with a visualization mechanism that enables nonprogrammers to create Web services by performing point-and-click, drag-and-drop operations on GAPs. We built a tool based on our approach and created Web services that control two closed and monolithic commercial GAPs with this tool. Our evaluation suggests that our approach is effective and it can be used to create Web services from nontrivial GAPs.