The abstraction-link-view paradigm: using constraints to connect user interfaces to applications

ABSTRACT

The goal of the RENDEZVOUS project is to build interactive systems that are used by multiple users from multiple workstations, simultaneously. This goal caused us to choose an architecture that requires a clean run-time separation of user interfaces from applications. Such a separation has long been state goal of UIMS researchers, but it is difficult to achieve. A key technical reason for the difficulty is that modern direct manipulation interfaces require extensive communication between the user interface and the application to provide semantic feedback. We discuss several communications mechanisms that have been used in the past, and present our approach — the Abstraction-Link-View paradigm. Links are objects whose sole responsibility is to facilitate communication between the abstraction objects (application) and the view objects (user interfaces). The Abstraction-Link-View paradigm relies on concurrency and a fast but powerful constraint system.

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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:
  H. Information Systems
  H.5 INFORMATION INTERFACES AND PRESENTATION (I.7)
      H.5.3 Group and Organization Interfaces
          Subjects: Synchronous interaction

General Terms:
Design, Human Factors, Languages

Keywords:
constraints, dialog independence