Scott E. Hudson
Roger King
Abstract
A system for generating direct manipulation office systems is described. In these systems, the user directly manipulates graphical representations of office entities instead of dealing with these entities abstractly through a command language or menu system. These systems employ a new semantic data model to describe office entities. New techniques based on attribute grammars and incremental attribute evaluation are used to implement this data model in an efficient manner. In addition, the system provides a means of generating sophisticated graphics-based user interfaces that are integrated with the underlying semantic model. Finally, the generated systems contain a general user reversal and recovery (or undo) mechanism that allows them to be much more tolerant of human errors.
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Index Terms
- A generator of direct manipulation office systems
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Reviews
William T. Lee
This paper describes a generator of Direct Manipulation Office Systems (DMOS). According to the authors, in a DMOS, “. . . the user directly manipulates graphical representations of office entities instead of dealing with these entities abstractly through a command language or menu system.” The HIGGENS system (Human Interface Graphical Generation System) does not seem to be restricted to the domain of office systems, as it is used in the paper. HIGGENS is composed of three parts: active data, which encapsulates not only data but a description of its semantics in a nonprocedural specification through the use of attribute grammars; semantic restructuring view generators, which filter the underlying active data and construct useful “views” into the stored information; and a picture planning system, which generates the actual graphical objects that reflect the constructed views. This separation of active data, filtering processes, and rendering processes allows the implementor to focus his attention on each area in turn and generate very modular systems. Constraint propagation using Boolean attributes, coupled with a lazy evaluation scheme in a dataflow architecture, makes the system both efficient and responsive. Simple undo and macro capabilities are also provided. The paper is wordy and could have been shortened through the judicious use of extra diagrams. The concepts behind the system are simple and the theory behind the implementation straightforward. Uninteresting details, like the section on display primitives, could have been considerably shortened with no loss of information. An example is used effectively in the paper to illustrate the DMOS generation process. The paper is aimed at the technical reader who has little knowledge of User Interface Management Systems (UIMS) and Direct Manipulation Office Systems (DMOS). A general computer science background is assumed, but no knowledge of advanced (graduate-level) concepts is required.
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