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CIRL/PIWI: A GUI toolkit supporting retargetability
Author(s) -
Cowan D. D.,
Durance C. M.,
Giguère E.,
Pianosi G. M.
Publication year - 1993
Publication title -
software: practice and experience
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.437
H-Index - 70
eISSN - 1097-024X
pISSN - 0038-0644
DOI - 10.1002/spe.4380230506
Subject(s) - computer science , software portability , graphical user interface , abstraction , human–computer interaction , interface (matter) , user interface , task (project management) , software , programming language , operating system , management , economics , philosophy , epistemology , bubble , maximum bubble pressure method
Writing applications that are easily moved to various computer platforms with different graphical user interfaces (GUIs) is a complex task. Yet this concept is important for the creator of commercial software, as it is not likely to be clear for many years whether one or two GUIs will survive and become industry ‘standards’ or whether the growth in GUIs will continue because of new developments in human‐computer interfaces. Providing a user interface abstraction that maps into all toolkits seems to be an appropriate way to proceed, but is fraught with difficulty. For example, different GUIs present a different look‐and‐feel that often causes system‐specific information to be embedded in an application. This paper surveys the problems inherent in designing a user interface abstraction, and describes the experiences gained from a specific implementation called CIRL/PIWI. CIRL and PIWI are acronyms for Co‐ordinate‐Independent Resource Language and Presentation‐Independent Windowed Interface. The user interface abstraction contains a knowledge base that allows many components of the user interface to be defined independent of look‐and‐feel thereby increasing the portability of an application.