A software model and specification language for non-WIMP user interfaces
- 1 March 1999
- journal article
- Published by Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) in ACM Transactions on Computer-Human Interaction
- Vol. 6 (1) , 1-46
- https://doi.org/10.1145/310641.310642
Abstract
We present a software model and language for describing and programming the fine-grained aspects of interaction in a non-WIMP user interface, such as a virtual environment. Our approach is based on our view that the essence of a non-WIMP dialogue is a set of continuous relationships—most of which are temporary. The model combines a data-flow or constraint-like component for the continuous relationships with an event-based component for discrete interactions, which can enable or diable individual continuous relationships. To demonstrate our approach, we present the PMIW user interface management system for non-WIMP interactions, a set of examples running under it, a visual editor for our user interface description language, and a discussion of our implemantation and our restricted use of constraints for a performance-driven interactive situation. Our goal is to provide a model and language that captures the formal structure of non-WIMP interactions in the way that various previous techniques have captured command-based, textual, and event-based styles and to suggest that using it need and not compromise real-time performance.Keywords
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