Frameworks for interactive, extensible, information-intensive applications

ABSTRACT

We describe a set of application frameworks designed especially to support information-intensive applications in complex domains, where the visual organization of an application's information is critical. Our frameworks, called visual formalisms, provide the semantic structures and editing operations, as well as the visual layout algorithms, needed to create a complete application. Examples of visual formalisms include tables, panels, graphs, and outlines. They are designed to be extended both by programmers, through subclassing, and by end users, through an integrated extension language.

REFERENCES

• 1: Betz, D. M. (1989). XScheme: An Object-Oriented Scheme. P.O. Box 144, Peterborough, NH.
• 2: Michelle Gantt , Bonnie A. Nardi, Gardeners and gurus: patterns of cooperation among CAD users, Proceedings of the SIGCHI conference on Human factors in computing systems, p.107-117, May 03-07, 1992, Monterey, California, United States [doi>10.1145/142750.142767]
• 3: David Harel, On visual formalisms, Communications of the ACM, v.31 n.5, p.514-530, May 1988 [doi>10.1145/42411.42414]
• 4: ITC (1988). The Andrew System: Programmer's Guide to the Andrew Toolkit. Pittsburgh, PA, Information Technology Center, Carnegie Mellon University.
• 5: Jeff Johnson, Selectors: going beyond user-interface widgets, Proceedings of the SIGCHI conference on Human factors in computing systems, p.273-279, May 03-07, 1992, Monterey, California, United States [doi>10.1145/142750.142810]
• 6: Mark A. Linton , John M. Vissides , Paul R. Calder, Composing User Interfaces with InterViews, Computer, v.22 n.2, p.8-22, February 1989 [doi>10.1109/2.19829]
• 7: Brad A. Myers , Dario A. Giuse , Roger B. Dannenberg , David S. Kosbie , Edward Pervin , Andrew Mickish , Brad Vander Zanden , Philippe Marchal, Garnet: Comprehensive Support for Graphical, Highly Interactive User Interfaces, Computer, v.23 n.11, p.71-85, November 1990 [doi>10.1109/2.60882]
• 8: Bonnie A. Nardi , James R. Miller, The spreadsheet interface: A basis for end user programming, Proceedings of the IFIP TC13 Third Interational Conference on Human-Computer Interaction, p.977-983, August 27-31, 1990
• 9: Bonnie A. Nardi , James R. Miller, Twinkling lights and nested loops: distributed problem solving and spreadsheet development, International Journal of Man-Machine Studies, v.34 n.2, p.161-184, Feb. 1991 [doi>10.1016/0020-7373(91)90040-E]
• 10: Nardi, B. and Zarmer, C. (1991b). Beyond Models and Metaphors: Visual Formalisms in User Interface Design. Proceedings of the 24th Hawaii international Conference on System Sciences, Koloa, HI, January 8-11 1991, Vol. II, pp. 478- 491.
• 11: Dan R. Olsen, Jr. , Thomas G. McNeill , David C. Mitchell, Workspaces: an architecture for editing collections of objects, Proceedings of the SIGCHI conference on Human factors in computing systems, p.267-272, May 03-07, 1992, Monterey, California, United States [doi>10.1145/142750.142808]
• 12: Kurt W. Piersol, Object-oriented spreadsheets: the analytic spreadsheet package, Conference proceedings on Object-oriented programming systems, languages and applications, p.385-390, September 29-October 02, 1986, Portland, Oregon, United States
• 13: Schmucker, K. (1986). MacApp: An Application Framework. Byte (August 1986).
• 14: P. Szekely, Standardizing the interface between applications and UIM's, Proceedings of the 2nd annual ACM SIGGRAPH symposium on User interface software and technology, p.34-42, November 13-15, 1989, Williamsburg, Virginia, United States [doi>10.1145/73660.73665]
• 15: Pedro Szekely, Template-based mapping of application data interactive displays, Proceedings of the 3rd annual ACM SIGGRAPH symposium on User interface software and technology, p.1-9, October 03-05, 1990, Snowbird, Utah, United States [doi>10.1145/97924.97925]
• 16: J. M. Vlissides , M. A. Linton, Unidraw: a framework for building domain-specific, Proceedings of the 2nd annual ACM SIGGRAPH symposium on User interface software and technology, p.158-167, November 13-15, 1989, Williamsburg, Virginia, United States [doi>10.1145/73660.73680]
• 17: Charles Wiecha , William Bennett , Stephen Boies , John Gould , Sharon Greene, ITS: a tool for rapidly developing interactive applications, ACM Transactions on Information Systems (TOIS), v.8 n.3, p.204-236, July 1990 [doi>10.1145/98188.98194]
• 18: Zarmer, C. (1991). ACEKit: An Application Construction Toolkit. HPL-Report-91-134. Palo Alto, CA: Hewlett-Packard Labs, September 1991.
• 19: Zarmer, C., Nardi, B., Johnson, J. and Miller, J. (1992). ACE: Zen and the Art of Application Building. Proceedings of the 25th Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences, Kola, HI, January 7-10 1992, Vol. II, pp. 687-698.

INDEX TERMS

Primary Classification:
  H. Information Systems
  H.5 INFORMATION INTERFACES AND PRESENTATION (I.7)
      H.5.2 User Interfaces (D.2.2, H.1.2, I.3.6)
          Subjects: User interface management systems (UIMS)

Additional Classification:
  D. Software
  D.1 PROGRAMMING TECHNIQUES
  D.2 SOFTWARE ENGINEERING
      D.2.2 Design Tools and Techniques
          Subjects: User interfaces

General Terms:
Algorithms, Design, Human Factors, Languages

Keywords:
application frameworks, builders, end user programming, user interface management systems, user interface toolkits