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An approach to automatic display layout using combinatorial optimization algorithms
Author(s) -
Lüders Peter,
Ernst Rolf,
Stille Stefan
Publication year - 1995
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.4380251102
Subject(s) - window (computing) , computer science , hypertext , graphical user interface , graph , interface (matter) , graph layout , page layout , user interface , theoretical computer science , human–computer interaction , algorithm , graph drawing , programming language , world wide web , parallel computing , bubble , maximum bubble pressure method , advertising , business
The introduction of automatic display layout (ADL), i.e. the automatic placing and sizing of windows in a window‐oriented graphical user interface, is a major contribution towards an improved user interface. Our approach to ADL is to treat this problem as a combinatorial optimization problem. In this article we describe the concepts we used for implementing an experimental system which controls the computer screen contents and its layout. We give two examples of different standard applications into which we included ADL successfully, namely hypertext for a window layout problem and graph‐browser for a hierarchical graph layout problem within a particular window. The results show that automatic (and tool independent) display layout will be possible in the near future even in an interactive environment.