一个基于CORBA的图形用户界面体系结构及实例

随着网络计算技术的发展,软件的结构变为表示／处理／数据库分离的三级模式。表示与处理的分离导致了用户界面与应用计算间的通信成为开发交互式系统图形用户界面的关键。本文为分布式交互图形应用的开发提供了一个基于公用对象需求代理结构ＣＯＲＢＡ的用户界面体系结构,ＣＯＲＢＡ是为分布式对象系统中间件制定的一个互操作标准。在这个结构中,一些被称为代理的面向对象交互式图形构件被设计用来为图形的表示与交互提供有效的解     

Toolkit design for interactive structured graphics

Here, we analyze toolkit designs for building graphical applications with rich user interfaces, comparing polylithic and monolithic toolkit-based solutions. Polylithic toolkits encourage extension by composition and follow a design philosophy similar to 3D scene graphs supported by toolkits including JavaSD and Openlnventor. Monolithic toolkits, on the other hand, encourage extension by inheritance, and are more akin to 2D graphical user interface toolkits such as Swing or MFC. We describe Jazz (a polylithic toolkit) and Piccolo (a monolithic toolkit), each of which we built to support interactive 2D structured graphics applications in general, and zoomable user interface applications in particular. We examine the trade offs of each approach in terms of performance, memory requirements, and programmability. We conclude that a polylithic approach is most suitable for toolkit builders, visual design software where code is automatically generated, and application builders where there is much customization of the toolkit. Correspondingly, we find that monolithic approaches appear to be best for application builders where there is not much customization of the toolkit.     

Creating a reusable GUI component

Application development of a large number of graphical user interface (GUI) screens and reports requires a labor‐intensive process. In the typical scenario, a GUI developer drags each component, such as the textfield, label, and error messages, on each of the new GUI screens or reports. They then set the component properties and perhaps write any validation routines for input data. Using the proposed Observation Panel Bean (OPB), the developer drags only one component per field, and the OPB dynamically builds the GUI components with consistent properties and links the observation field to the needed validation routine. With little development effort these fields are simply selected from the data dictionary and placed on the GUI. The proposed OPB uses Fowler's observation pattern as a high‐level abstraction representing attributes observed about information in the application domain. The panel collaborates with the observation pattern to set the label, error message, and properties of the various components. Yoder's validator pattern collaborates with the observation pattern and the data dictionary to validate the observations. The proposed OPB decreases GUI development time, adds adaptability to GUI design, and increases consistency in GUI component presentation. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

μC/GUI在博创ARM300-S上的移植

μC/GUI是一个专为嵌入式应用软件设计的通用的图形软件库,它被设计成为任何一个使用了支持图形的LCD应用提供一个有效的、与处理器和LCD控制器独立的绘图用户接口.μC/GUI的可移植性好,能够与所有的CPU兼容,因为它是用100%的ANSI C写成的.主要介绍μC/GUI的系统要求,特色和结构,论述了该图形软件库在博创公司的ARM300-S（S3C44B0X）的嵌入式开发平台的移植、配置,同时又对μC/GUI在ARM300-S上移植的过程中所出现的问题进行了探讨,并提出了解决的方法.     

Lessons learned from programmers' experiences with one‐way constraints

One‐way constraints have been incorporated in many graphical user interface toolkits because they are simple to learn, easy to write, and can express many types of useful graphical relationships. This paper is an evaluative paper that examines users' experience with one‐way constraints in two user interface development toolkits, Garnet and Amulet, over a 15‐year time span. The lessons gained from this examination can help guide the design of future constraint systems. The most important lessons are that (1) constraints should be allowed to contain arbitrary code that is written in the underlying toolkit language and does not require any annotations, such as parameter declarations, (2) constraints are difficult to debug and better debugging tools are needed, and (3) programmers will readily use one‐way constraints to specify the graphical layout of an application, but must be carefully and time‐consumingly trained to use them for other purposes. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Unix tools as visual programming components in a GUI‐builder environment

Development environments based on ActiveX controls and JavaBeans are marketed as ‘visual programming’ platforms; in practice their visual dimension is limited to the design and implementation of an application's graphical user interface (GUI). The availability of sophisticated GUI development environments and visual component development frameworks is now providing viable platforms for implementing visual programming within general‐purpose platforms, i.e. for the specification of non‐GUI program functionality using visual representations. We describe how specially designed reflective components can be used in an industry‐standard visual programming environment to graphically specify sophisticated data transformation pipelines that interact with GUI elements. The components are based on Unix‐style filters repackaged as ActiveX controls. Their visual layout on the development environment canvas is used to specify the connection topology of the resultant pipeline. The process of converting filter‐style programs into visual controls is automated using a domain‐specific language. We demonstrate the approach through the design and the visual implementation of a GUI‐based spell‐checker. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

使用uC/GUI开发图形用户界面

用户界面是用户与计算机进行交互的操作方式，它的质量直接影响计算机的推广和用户的使用效率。针对目前嵌入式系统对开发图形用户界面(GUI)应用的迫切需求，介绍了一款提供了丰富的GUI支持，并且对系统资源占用很少的软件。通过使用它，可以实现嵌入式系统上GUI应用的快速开发。     

一种面向对象GUI设计方法研究与应用

该文提出了一种基于面向对象技术的图形用户界面(GUI)设计方法。该方法把GUI设计从逻辑上分为三层:风格层、模块层和实施层。它是以单继承为基础,在充分考虑问题域的前提下,以实现过程简单和界面友好为目标而提出来的。结合三层结构方法,文章对一些常见的面向对象界面现象进行了探讨。最后给出了使用该方法的实用例子及说明。     

Usability testing — on a budget: a NASA usability test case study

Okay, so you've purchased a graphical user interface (GUI) builder tool to help you quickly build a sophisticated user interface, and your developers promise to follow a particular style guide (e.g., OSF/Motif, Apple/Macintosh) when creating the GUI. This is definitely a step in the right direction, but it is no guarantee that the application's user interface will be usable; that is, where the user interface helps, rather than hinders, the end-users from doing their jobs. Numerous techniques for testing the usability and user satisfaction of an application's GUI are available, such as design walk-throughs, field testing with beta releases, demonstrations of prototypes to future end-users, and user questionnaires. One of the most effective techniques is usability testing with defined tasks and metrics, and yet, it is not commonly used in project development life cycles at the National Aeronautics and Space Agency (NASA). This paper discusses a low-budget, but effective, approach we used at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC) to perform structured usability testing. It did not require any additional staff or a usability laboratory, but did successfully identify problems with the application's user interface. The purpose of the usability testing was two-fold: (1) to test the process used in the usability test; and (2) to apply the results of the test to improving the subject software's user interface. This paper will discuss the results from the test and the lessons learned. It will conclude with a discussion of future plans to conduct cost benefit analysis and integrate usability testing as a required step in a project's development life cycle.     

Usability testing — on a budget: a NASA usability test case study

Abstract

Okay, so you've purchased a graphical user interface (GUI) builder tool to help you quickly build a sophisticated user interface, and your developers promise to follow a particular style guide (e.g., OSF/Motif, Apple/Macintosh) when creating the GUI. This is definitely a step in the right direction, but it is no guarantee that the application's user interface will be usable; that is, where the user interface helps, rather than hinders, the end-users from doing their jobs. Numerous techniques for testing the usability and user satisfaction of an application's GUI are available, such as design walk-throughs, field testing with beta releases, demonstrations of prototypes to future end-users, and user questionnaires. One of the most effective techniques is usability testing with defined tasks and metrics, and yet, it is not commonly used in project development life cycles at the National Aeronautics and Space Agency (NASA). This paper discusses a low-budget, but effective, approach we used at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC) to perform structured usability testing. It did not require any additional staff or a usability laboratory, but did successfully identify problems with the application's user interface. The purpose of the usability testing was two-fold: (1) to test the process used in the usability test; and (2) to apply the results of the test to improving the subject software's user interface. This paper will discuss the results from the test and the lessons learned. It will conclude with a discussion of future plans to conduct cost benefit analysis and integrate usability testing as a required step in a project's development life cycle.     

Domain‐specific design of user interfaces

The use of graphical user interfaces in a computerized work environment is often considered to substantially improve the work situation. The outcome can, however, often be the opposite. Inappropriate use of windowing techniques, scrolling, and colors can result in tedious and confusing interaction with the computer. Today's standards and style guides define basic design principles but are insufficient for design of interfaces to end‐user applications. Here detailed domain knowledge is indeed essential. A domain‐specific style guide (DSSG) is an extension of today's standard with domain‐specific primitives, interface elements, and forms, together with domain‐specific guidelines. Careful dedicated analysis of information utilization in a domain is the development basis for a DSSG. The development is performed with an object‐oriented approach to facilitate the reuse of interface components and to support consistency and structure. Using a DSSG, the development of applications can be performed with a simplified information analysis. Therefore a more effective design process is possible, one in which end users can participate in the design using their own familiar domain‐related terminology. Time and costs for the development process can be drastically reduced if domain‐specific style guides, design guidelines, and development tools are used.     

Printed embedded data graphical user interfaces

In a graphical user interface (GUI), interaction is based upon selection and action at positions in the graphical display, guided by graphical content and the user's intent. Printed embedded data GUIs (PEDGUIs) generalize the interaction domain to images and objects in order to enable interaction with passive objects and active displays throughout the user environment. The interface can be almost any object. The selection and control tool is an image capture device. The embedded data helps to establish the selection location and gesture, as well as the identity or context of the chosen substrate and links to other resources. Even in the case of multiple active and passive display substrates, the GUI system captures and interprets user interactions throughout the workspace. DataGlyph technology, based on self-clocking glyph code, is a particularly efiective and flexible encoding technology for embedded data GUIs     

CIRL/PIWI: A GUI toolkit supporting retargetability

Writing applications that are easily moved to various computer platforms with different graphical user interfaces (GUIs) is a complex task. Yet this concept is important for the creator of commercial software, as it is not likely to be clear for many years whether one or two GUIs will survive and become industry ‘standards’ or whether the growth in GUIs will continue because of new developments in human-computer interfaces. Providing a user interface abstraction that maps into all toolkits seems to be an appropriate way to proceed, but is fraught with difficulty. For example, different GUIs present a different look-and-feel that often causes system-specific information to be embedded in an application. This paper surveys the problems inherent in designing a user interface abstraction, and describes the experiences gained from a specific implementation called CIRL/PIWI.

1 CIRL and PIWI are acronyms for Co-ordinate-Independent Resource Language and Presentation-Independent Windowed Interface.

The user interface abstraction contains a knowledge base that allows many components of the user interface to be defined independent of look-and-feel thereby increasing the portability of an application.     

An empirical comparison of menu-selection (((CUI) and desktop (GUI) computer programs carried out by beginners and experts

As advantages and disadvantages of graphical user interfaces are still controversial, this study focuses on an empirical comparison of a desktop interface (GUI) and a conventional user interface with menu selection (CUI). A total of 24 users (six novices and six experts with GUI; six novices and six experts with CUI). were given 20 benchmark tasks. Except for an introduction given by the investigator (1·5 h) the beginners had no or very little previous experience with electronic data processing, while the experts had previous experience of 3,700 h (desktop) or 7,500 h (menu selection), respectively. The results showed for both beginners and experts a statistically significant superiority of GUI of the desktop user interface with 'mouse' over the conventional user interface with menu selection and function keys (CUI). The experts in GUI needed 51% less time to complete the tasks averaged across all tasks, as compared to the experts using CUI. Moreover a significant interaction was found between tasks and user interfaces in the context of GUI.     

Requirements for graphical user interface development environments for groupware

Most user interface designers are conversant with graphical user interface (GUI) tools such as Motif¹ and Presentation Manager² which provide ‘widgets’ and other facilities for building user interfaces. Such GUI tools were developed primarily for building interfaces to single-user systems. The purpose of the paper is to present the result of research into the requirements for GUI tools for multi-user systems. Many of the requirements of single and multi-user GUIs are the same, for example, usability and flexibility. A number of new widgets are needed for multi-user GUIs, for example, shared scroll-bars and multi-user telepointers. The requirements are divided into three groups based on three sources of requirements: literature, user survey and widgets.     

A graphical user‐interface and an image processing toolkit for Perl

Perl is a powerful language for writing portable programs on a wide range of platforms. In this article two stand‐alone Perl toolkits, Prima and IPA, are presented, which provide graphical user interface and image processing functionality with features not found in any other Perl toolkits. Prima is a platform‐independent Perl graphic toolkit with an object‐oriented interface. Its features include an extensive set of Perl‐coded interface elements, a wide range of image types and conversion routines, and a visual builder. IPA is an image processing toolkit based on Prima functionality, and it provides a set of common two‐dimensional operators. Prima and IPA are used as a base for biological research, where the effects of various peptide‐based preparations on neuron culture are studied. Copyright © 2005 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

An architecture for distributed visualization of technical processes

The goal of the work presented here was to create the prototype of a graphical user interface for process visualization which requires only a fraction of the memory and processing power needed by today's de-facto industry standards for graphical user interfaces. As a result, an application framework for distributed process visualization called ‘Vision’ was developed. This paper describes the architecture of ‘Vision’, which achieved our goals by the consequent use of object-oriented design in the components of the user interface. The system offers a fully functional GUI as a basis, with special capabilities for fail-safe distribution of process-related events within a network of visualization stations. Several basic classes for visualizing process data are included.     

ILAN Intelligent Local Area Network Planning Software

The objective of this research is to develop an analysis tool for evaluating a token bus topology, supporting the Manufacturing Automation Protocol (MAP). Furthermore this research describes an easy-to-use graphical interface for a complex simulation program. Specifically, a graphical user interface for MAP network simulation program is illustrated. Simulation of MAP sub-networks interconnected by bridges can be performed without further programming. This software, called ILAN, features a unique graphical user interface with message definition facility and an error-checking inference engine which advises users of any instances of duplicated or omitted information. ILAN's problem-definition phase is simplified by implementing a single graphical user interface for all inputs.

Two main procedures within ILAN consist of a local area network simulation and an intelligent graphical interface with a unique graphical message definition facility. The simulation procedure includes the ability to model different numbers of multiple MAP sub-networks interconnected by bridges and different numbers of associations between stations using the token bus protocol. Higher layers in the protocol stacks are modeled as queues having variable delays for different messages at different stations. In order to aid users with the difficulty of inputting parameters needed to simulate complex MAP networks, a graphical user interface is developed. By means of this graphical interface, users can describe the MAP hardware configurations as well as message definitions to be simulated. Sequences of messages to be transmitted can be displayed on the screen as users describe them.