Implementing a user interface management system for existing applications using an object-oriented database tool

Numerous engineering application systems have been developed over the past twenty years, and many of these applications will continue to be used for many years to come. Examples of such applications include CAD Systems, finite-element analysis packages and inspection systems. Because many of these applications were developed before graphical workstations became available, they often have simple command-line user interfaces. Thus, there is a need for a graphical user interface management system (UIMS) that can be used to build point-and-click style interfaces for these existing engineering applications. In this paper we describe such a UIMS, and discuss its implementation using an object-oriented database tool. This UIMS allows users to create and modify user interfaces by editing graphical representations of the interfaces, thus eliminating the need to write code to build or modify an interface. The UIMS is implemented using an object-oriented database tool to take advantage of the data manipulation and storage management capabilities it provides. This approach reduces both the quantity and complexity of the code needed to implement the UIMS. It also allowed the UIMS to be implemented in a minimal amount of time.     

一个基于MS－Windows的用户接口开发系统：AutoDD

ＡｕｔｏＤＤ（ＡｕｔｏｍａｔｉｃＤｉａｌｏｇｕｅＤｅｖｅｌｏｐｅｒ）是作者在研究了现有的ＵＩＭＳ和ＵＩＤＳ系统的基础上设计和实现的一个基于ＭＳ－Ｗｉｎｄｏｗｓ的用户接口开发系统。本文详细阐述了ＡｕｔｏＤＤ的用户接口描述方法和对话独立实现方法，给出了系统的总体结构并介绍了系统的实现方法。     

Improving accessibility with user-tailored interfaces

The first stage in the design of a user interface is the quest for its ‘typical user’, an abstract generalization of each user of the application. However, in web systems and other scenarios where the application can be used by dozens of different kinds of users, the identification of this ‘typical user’ is quite difficult, if not impossible. Our proposal is to avoid the construction of interactive dialogs during the design stage, building them dynamically once the specific cognitive, perceptual and motor requirements of the current user are known: that is, during the execution stage. This is the approach used by GADEA, an intelligent user interface management system (UIMS) able to separate the functionality of an application from its interface in real time. The system adapts the components of the interface depending on the information stored in a user model which is continuously updated by a small army of data-gathering agents.     

Micro—UIDT：用户界面的开发工具

本文将介绍用户界面的开发工具:Micro-UIDT。该系统为用户界面的设计者提供交互式设计环境,所提供的进行用户界面设计的设计语言为一种非过程、图示语言。其中,进行用户界面的人-机对话控制部分的设计使用了状态转换图说明技术;而对应用数据显示部分的描述则通过直接作图和定义对该图的控制同应用数据间的关系来实现。Micro-UIDT还可将使用上述图示语言设计的用户界面变换为C语言处理程序。     

User Interface Management Systems for Engineering Applications

Essential features of a User Interface Management System (UIMS) from the perspective of engineering applications' user interface development are described. Three commercially available UIMS are validated against this set of essential features and the results of such a categorised evaluation are reported. The proliferation of user interface design tools necessitated an initialfiltering to select these tools on the basis of their availability on a wide range of platforms currently used by engineers, supplier support for the product and the prototyping tools the UIMS offer. Graphic Modelling System (GMS), TeleUSE and USEIT were selected for their potential utility to engineering applications. An earlier version of this paper was presented at the 1991 European X User Group Annual Conference held at Queens' College, Cambridge, UK. This comparative evaluation is compiled on behalf of the UK Science and Engineering Research Council, for the benefit of the UK academic engineering research community.     

Macros by example in a graphical UIMS

A macro facility that allows end users to extend interactive graphical applications is presented as part of a user-interface management system (UIMS). Such macros are expressed by example; that is, the end user programs the macro in the application's generated user interface. Problems with macros-by-example in graphical applications are explored, and requirements to accommodate such a facility are defined for the UIMS dialogue model. Existing UIMS models are reviewed relative to these requirements, and the unique facilities of the MIKE (menu interaction kontrol environment) semantics-based model are presented. The implementation of the macro-by-example system is discussed, as well as the particular implementation of a multicommand UNDO facility, which is necessary when editing micros by example     

P/CL: A flexible input processor

An interactive program inevitably has a need for a user interface which exceeds the simple combination of a write and a read statement. This is necessary to prevent a program abort due to an input error from the side of the user. Also it is desirable to allow for more advanced types of input than single characters or numbers. For these reasons a general-purpose input package has been developed which allows for sophisticated command-driven programs while offering the programmer as well as the user an easy-to-use interface. The structure of the package is described and examples of its use are given.     

The ECLIPSE user interface

This paper describes the user interface facilities of the ECLIPSE integrated project support environment. This interface is based on a consistent metaphor called the ‘control panel’ metaphor and includes standard help and message-handling systems. The paper describes these as well as some of the interface standards which have been developed. The interface has been implemented on top of the ‘applications interface’, which provides a portable, hardware-independent interface for software tools.     

Program generation for Ada — a case study

Program generation software is increasingly being used, not only to assist non-computer professionals to produce their own applications, but also to provide tools for programmers and designers. As part of the toolkit for an Ada dialogue development system, a program generator has been written in Ada to generate the package which codes the dialogue manager for a specified user interface. The input specifications and the method of generation are described. The advantages and disadvantages of Ada as the implementation, target and specification language are discussed.     

A design-and-play approach to accessible user interface development in Ambient Intelligence environments

User interface development in Ambient Intelligence (AmI) environments is anticipated to be a particularly complex and programming intensive endeavor. Additionally, AmI environments should ensure accessibility and usability of interactive technologies by users with different characteristics and requirements in a mainstream fashion. Therefore, appropriate user interface development methods and tools are required, capable of both reducing development efforts and ‘injecting’ accessibility issues into AmI applications from the early design stages. This paper introduces two tools, named AmIDesigner and AmIPlayer, which have been specifically developed to address the above challenges through automatic generation of accessible Graphical User Interfaces in AmI environments. The combination of these two tools offers a simple and rapid design-and-play approach, and the running user interfaces produced integrate non-visual feedback and a scanning mechanism to support accessibility. AmIDesigner and AmIPlayer have been evaluated to assess their usability by designers, and have been put to practice in the redevelopment of a light control application in a smart environment as a case study demonstrating the viability of the design-and-play approach. The results confirm the usefulness and usability of the tools themselves. Overall, the proposed approach has the potential to contribute significantly to the development, up-take and user acceptance of AmI technologies in the home environment.     

An Approach to User Interface Specification with Attribute Grammars

An approach to supporting user interfaces using an attribute grammar combined with an event model is described.The main emphasis is how to represent a multi-thread dialogue model in direct manipulation user interfaces.It is shown that control sequence within dialogues,communication with other dialogues, and some computations for applications can be specified with a syntactic and semantic notation.The attribute grammar specification can be implemented using an attribute grammar intepreter embedded in the run-time structure supporting communication,synchronization,and dialogue executon.     

GTI,a graphical telephone interface

Graphical Telephone Interface (GTI) is a screen-based telephony application for telecommunication services. It provides an intuitive user interface to the myriad of services and features in state-of-the-art communication systems, such as ISDN or a digital (ISDN) PBX. As a high-end telephony user interface, GTI controls voice and data connections with the comfort and ease of use to today's graphical user interfaces.     

Kernel for a responsive and graphical user interface

A kernel that facilitates building graphical and responsive user interfaces for application programs has been constructed. A display tree representing the structure of the 2-dimen-sional screen image is defined. Each node contains an input procedure, an output procedure and links to their arguments. This display tree is the only interface between the user and the application program. For viewing purposes, the display tree can be ‘painted’ onto any viewport. The output routines attached to the nodes are invoked to produce the image. The arguments found in the ancestor nodes can be thought of as shared graphical attributes. Upon each input event, the display tree is traversed to determine which node is touched by the cursor. The input procedure attached to that node is then invoked. The use of a library with standard attached procedures (e.g. for screen editing and error checking) leads to a system that behaves uniformly across applications. Some demonstration programs, based on this kernel, show the very dynamic screen communication that can be achieved.     

User interface aspects of an MRP II planning module

This paper summarizes the work on a user interface for an MRP II planning system which has been developed using artificial intelligence techniques as a support tool for the final user. Experiences with real applications show that the success of such a system depends on the flexibility and facility to acquire the knowledge through a correct model and the facilities for displaying results.     

一种基于小波变换的静态图象压缩编码方法

本文介绍了一种利用小波变换对静态图象数据进行压缩编码的具体方法。主要内容包括小波变换在图象压缩编码中的应用原理、变换域的量化、数据编码技术，以及计算机模拟结果和评价。文中描述了一种实用的基于小波变换的图象数据压缩算法。     

PDUIMS--基于持久存储的用户界面管理系统的设计与应用

用户界面作为软件系统的重要组成部分,在软件整个生命周期中具有独特的地位。软件质量控制的核心在于用户界面的有效、可扩展、高适应度的管理、常规的界面管理位于源码一级,对于大规模企业级应用将带来许多弊端文中介绍了一个利用动态加载和持久存储实现的面向商务处理的用户界面管理系统ＰＤＵＩＭＳ,该系统通过功能描述数据表存储用户界面实现了集中统一的数据库工程化界面管理和发布,对于应用语义提供了分离机制实例表明了该     

Reflections on using a UIMS for complex applications

The building of a user interface management system (UIMS) is described from the perspective of the development team. This UIMS is a key component of the open-architecture system-integration services (OASIS) project at Electronic Data Systems. While OASIS's application domain is generally CAD/CAM/CAE (computer-aided design/manufacturing/engineering), users can extend its functionality by using a command macro language. The results are presented as observations and impressions gathered from the programming and training staffs, users, UIMS developers     

一种交互技术独立的UIMS模型

ＵＩＭＳ的表现层与交互设备和交互技术、人文因素、任务特点等密切相关，直接影响ＵＩＭＳ的可移植性、可扩展性及其对用户和应用的适应能力。本文首先提出一种开放的三维ＵＩＭＳ表示模型，进而提出一种交互技术独立的ＵＩＭＳ模型     

Interfacing the user

In laboratory automation systems the user interface is that part of the software/hardware systems that provides for communication with the user. A new software approach is reported, consisting of a flexible interpreter combined with FORTRAN coded application modules. The interpreter (BACO) is built on a tagged data structure, comprising user variables, program lines as well as part of the language definition. A language dialect may be defined, tailored to the requirements of the application at hand. The structure of the system is described and an example of its application is given.     

Automated user interface engineering with a pattern reflecting programming language

The development of the user interface concerns all aspects of a software system that are targeted to the interactive delivery of its functionality and data. Today, user interface development accounts for a large proportion of the overall software implementation, while the programming process involves various recurring software patterns. Based on the identification of key commonly occurring user interface programming patterns, we have designed and implemented a user interface programming language with built-in constructs to directly support those software patterns, offering declarative programming features such as: precondition-based actions, unidirectional constraints and data-content monitors. Initially, we introduce the deployment syntax and semantics of the novel programming elements, relying upon subject interaction scenarios. Then we reveal the most demanding implementation aspects of the code generator and the respective run-time library.