Unified user interface for a CAD system

ABSTRACT

This paper deals with a part of the framework of a CAD system for VLSI circuit; namely the one concerned with the input-output information management. Of course the accent is put on the graphical information due to the characteristics of the specific domain. The package has mainly two purposes: one being to provide facilities to the application programmer in order to ease their tasks and the other one being to provide a uniform environment to the user of the CAD system. The described UIMS system possesses some of the more widely lauded attributes, like device independence, feedback at both syntactic and semantic levels, internal automatic recovery, style independent interface toward the application, management of structured graphic output, high level graphic functions and a simple definition language.

INDEX TERMS

Primary Classification:
  B. Hardware
  B.7 INTEGRATED CIRCUITS
      B.7.1 Types and Design Styles
          Subjects: VLSI (very large scale integration)

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

  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)

  J. Computer Applications

General Terms:
Design, Human Factors, Performance, Theory