Interface Objects Research Articles

Integrating the user interface in an object-oriented measurement system

The aim of this work is to apply the object-oriented (OO) programming technology to the development of computer-based measurement systems. The chosen framework is centred on a concurrent, time-sensitive, OO programming model, which in general is suited to the construction of real-time applications. The paper first highlights basic methodological issues of the proposed model and its usefulness in the construction of the software of an automatic measurement system. Then it concentrates on a possible realization of the user interface which strictly adheres to the OO paradigm and fits naturally into the adopted model. A careful layering of the architecture together with a proper use of the inheritance mechanism allow to reuse pre-defined user interface objects whose external behaviour is specialized for each test method. The use of the graphical interface is exemplified by means of some measurement examples.

User interface system based on active objects

An active-object user interface system (AOUIS) is a user interface system implemented as an active object system (AOS). An AOS is a transition-based object-oriented system suitable for the design of various concurrent systems. In an AOUIS, user interface objects , which are sometimes called "widgets", are represented as active user interface objects (AUIOs). The behavior of an AUIO is defined by the transition rules, the equational assignment statements, and the event routines provided in its class definition. Furthermore, an AUIO can be constructed from its component AUIOs through structural composition as if it were a hardware object. Thus, AUIOs are better encapsulated and provide more flexible communication protocols than ordinary user interface objects. In addition, declarative descriptions of multiple views can be provided for each AUIO.

An Alternative Approach to Hypertext

SUMMARY The Book Emulator is an alternative approach to hypertext, having many of the advantages that exist with pure hypertext systems but none of the fundamental flaws that are inherent in the user interface to such systems. This paper expands on this premise. It gives a brief description of the user interface to the Book Emulator, identifies some of the alternative ways in which information is handled that are compatible with the book metaphor, and briefly describes how the Book Emulator behaves as a user interface object capable of providing the interface between the user and an application.

ApplBuilder: An Object-Oriented Application Generator Supporting Rapid Prototyping

This paper describes an object-oriented application generator, APPLBUILDER, currently being developed in the Mjølner BETA programming environment. APPLBUILDER supports several rapid prototyping styles as well as final development of BETA applications. User interface objects such as dialogs, menus, and windows are designed using direct manipulation graphical editors. Actions behind buttons and menu items are programmed as ''scripts'' in textual editors activated from within a graphical editor. The editors reflect changes in the code directly in an underlying Abstract Syntax Tree (AST) thus saving compilation time. Moreover, generated applications are modularized so that editing, for instance the script for a button, only requires re-compilation of the script itself. An advantage of APPLBUILDER compared to other user-interface design tools such as HyperCard is that APPLBUILDER's scripts are embedded in a general purpose programming language making it possible to avoid calls to external routines written in another language. In addition, APPLBUILDER's ability to work with ASTs instead of textual code skeletons supports reverse engineering.

Managing objects in a user interface system with ROBA

Relational OBject Architecture (ROBA) is a software architecture designed for efficient management of user interface objects in the Mugen system [LHMM89]. Mugen, created at IBM's Tokyo Research Laboratory, is a prototype system for an application development environment, which has the paradigm of generating new applications from provided existing integrated applications. Figure 1 shows a dialogue panel of a new application created in Mugen. There are three boxes for entry points of tasks. A user can dynamically change, add, or delete a task box through Mugen's user interface system, which has the following features: (1) the user interface is created in a WYSIWYG manner, and (2) the layout object can link to a task, which carries out a recorded sequence of a user's operations on applications. The system for building a user interface in Mugen is called the user interface enabler .

A graphical environment for user-interface design and development

This paper presents a new approach to the design of an easy-to-use and flexible user-interface management system (UIMS). We identify two major problems for UIMSs. The first problem is to find a way to make the UIMS easier to use without sacrificing important functionality. A new design concept, behaviour abstraction, is described which allows important gains in ease-of-use, while retaining the kind of flexibility needed by user-interface designers. The second problem is to provide a user-interface design tool that allows easy and flexible runtime configuration. A traditional notation, the data-flow diagram, proves to be an adequate and appropriate organising principle for the design of the runtime connection between a user-interface module and application modules. An implementation, called the graphical specification system (GSS), provides an integrated environment for designing the user-interface component of interactive embedded system software. GSS provides two tools; an application display generator (ADG) for designing screen objects and a data-flow editor (DFE) for specifying runtime connections. The ADG uses behaviour abstraction in a what-you-see-is-what-you-get (WYSIWYG) drawing environment. The designer can easily create arbitrary graphical presentations and assign behavioural roles for these presentations to build functional user-interface objects. In the DFE, the designer can specify sources, transformations and destinations of data by selecting user-interface objects designed in ADG, attaching functions to internal nodes or using special intermodule connection icons called ports. The DFE allows a limited programming capability through the diagrams to accommodate the needs of an evolving user interface. GSS demonstrates the smooth integration of a drawing environment for display design and a data-flow editor for runtime specification. The specifications can be executed for testing during the design process and saved for stand-alone execution. Our results provide a platform for future work in extending the behaviour abstraction concept and for building in usability engineering tools.

Modeling concepts for VLSI CAD objects

VLSI CAD applications deal with design objects that have an interface description and an implementation description. Versions of design objects have a common interface but differ in their implementations. A molecular object is a modeling construct which enables a database entity to be represented by two sets of heterogeneous records, one set describes the object's interface and the other describes its implementation. Thus a reasonable starting point for modeling design objects is to begin with the concept of molecular objects. In this paper, we identify modeling concepts that are fundamental to capturing the semantics of VLSI CAD design objects and versions in terms of molecular objects. A provisional set of user operations on design objects, consistent with these modeling concepts, is also defined. The modeling framework that we present has been found useful for investigating physical storage techniques and change notification problems in version control.