pd@cheviot.newcastle.ac.uk (Paul D. Davison) (08/20/87)
Some weeks ago I posted a query about mail user interfaces, wondering if anyone could point me towards some useful reading. Here is a summary of the responses that I got. Mitchell F. Wyle (wyle@ethz.uucp) expressed interest and said that he has a student writing rnTool for the Sun. He also pointed me towards mailtool for the Sun (which I have examined). Roman J. Budzianowski (roman@edu.mit.athena) suggested I look at "xmh", an X-based front end to mh. Robert Weir (weir@uucp.astroatc) suggested reading "Beyond the Chalkboard: Computer Support for Collaboration and Problem Solving in Meetings", Mark Stefik, Gregg Foster et al, CACM 30,1 Jan 1987. Sandeep Mehta (sandeep%image@uucp.ur-laser) is working on a user interface for a portable image processing system, using X. He provided many references on user interfaces: %A Joy, K.I. %T Graphics interface tool development in a problem solving environment %J Visual Comput. ( Germany ) %V 2 %V 2, No. 2 %P 63-71 %I Computer Graphics %C Tokyo %D 1985 %K JOY85 %A de Cotret, Y.R.; Schubert, A. %T A user interface for photographic image processing based on a photgraphic kernel system %J ESPRIT '84. Status Report of ongoing work %P 355-64 %I North-Holland %C Amsterdam, Netherlands %D Sept. 1984 %K COT84 %A Joy, K.I. %T A model for graphics interface tool development %J Proceedings of Graphics Interface, 1985 %P 159-65 %I Canadian Inf. Process. Soc., %C Toronto, Ont., Canada %D May 1985. %K JOY85.2 %A Ritter, P.R.; Kraugers, A.; Travlos, A.J. %T Design on computer software for geographic image processing %J The 9th W.T. Pecora Remote Sensing Symposium : Spatial Info. T Tech. for Today & Tomorrow. %P 33-9 %I IEEE Computer Soc. Press. %C Silver Spring, MD, USA %D Oct. 1984 %K RIT84 %A Addington, J.D. %T A Device & User-Interface Independent Image Processing System %J Proceedings of the SPIE, Int. Soc. Opt. Engg.(USA) %V 504 %P 112-15 %I SPIE %D 1984 %K ADD84 %A Draper, S.W.; Norman, D.A. %T Software Engineering for User Interfaces %J IEEE Proceedings on Software Engineering %P 214-20 %I IEEE %D 1984 %K DRA84 %A Bass, L.J. %T Generalized User Interface for Application Programs %J Communications of the ACM %V 28, No.6 %P 617-27 %I ACM %D 1985 %K BAS85 %A Palme, J. %T A Human-Computer interface encouraging user growth %J Designing for Human Computer Communication %P 139-156 %I Academic Press %C London %D 1983 %O edited by Sime, M.E.; Coombs, M.J. %K PAL83 %A Hartson, H. Rex. %T Advances in Human-Computer Interaction %V 1 %I Ablex Publishing Corp. %C Norwood, New Jersey. %D 1985 %K HAR85 %A Sheil, B. %T Power Tools for Programmers %J Datamation %V 29 %P 131-144 %D Feb.,1983 %K SHE83 %A Hayes, Philip J. %T Executable Interface Definitions Using Form-Based Interface Abstractions. %J Advances in Human-Computer Interaction %V 1 %P 161-189 %I Ablex Publishing Corp. %C Norwood, New Jersey. %D 1985 %A Wasserman, Anthony I.; Shewmake, David T. %T The Role of Prototypes in the User Software Engineering (USE) Methodology %J Advances in Human-Computer Interaction %V 1 %P 191-199 %I Ablex Publishing Corp. %C Norwood, New Jersey. %D 1985 %A Gettys, Jim; Newman, Ron; Della Fera, Tony; %T Xlib - C Langauge X Interface Protocol Version 10 %I MIT Project Athena %D Nov. 16, 1986 Thanks, Sandeep, and I'm sorry I haven't got in touch yet about the refs you can't get. So far I haven't needed to try for any of them but I gave them to a colleague who's interested in them and he will probably be searching for them. Niels Mayer (mayer%hplabsz@com.hp.hplabs) also mentioned xmh, and said that he'd missed the reference to an Xified elm that I talked about in my original posting. Since this hasn't shown up on the net, and no-one that replied to me said anything about it, I'm beginning to think it was all a dream :-) Dan Heller (argv%island@sun.com) told me about his "Mail Users Shell": >I wrote a program called "Mail User's Shell" (Mush) and think it might help you with your endeavors in finding a good interface for unix mailers. In contrast with ELM, which as I understand it only has one user interface, MUSH has 3: The Sunwindows icon-based interface, the standard curses based interface (as elm is, but not like elm's) and a straight tty-based interface reminiscent of csh. The line mode has history and command line aliasing similar to csh and all three interfaces share a great deal of commonality so users can do the same types of commands no matter which interface they choose to use. Among many of the other aspects of mush, there is command piping, sorting of messages, referencing of specific messages as if it were a relational database and so on... Further, mush is portable to virtually any unix system ... I've installed it on machine from Sun's running as low as 1.1 and up to 3.3 as well as IBM-PC's running xenix. It also runs on old system-V version III machines as well as the VAX and uVAX running 4.2 and 4.3. I've seen it run on a Pyramid running their own flavor of sys-v and even on a Celerity RISC machine. If you have arpanet (ftp) access, you can get the latest version of mush on spam.istc.sri.com in ~ftp/pub/mush/mush.tar-5.6.Z (this is a compressed tar file, so be sure to set binary mode in ftp). Please give it a try and let me know what you think. I'm going to post it officially to the net once I have time (real work gets in the way of these things :-) --dan So far I haven't been able to get the program; I think I will wait till it gets posted. Kerry Kimbrough (Kimbrough%mcvax@dsg) gave me a reference: Jeffries, Robin and Rosenberg, Jarrett. "Comparing a Form-Based and a Language-Based User Interface for Instructing a Mail Program". Proceedings of CHI+GI 1987 (Toronto, April 5-9). ACM, New York, 1987, pp. 261-266. Mateo Burtch (e-mail address killed off somewhere!) told me of documentation he is writing for sun's mailtool, due out late Autumn (fall!) and suggested I get back to him in October if I was interested. Bill Wohler (wohler@com.sri.istc.spam) wrote: try the gnuemacs interface to mh. you get the strengths of mh (and since it's stateless, can use mh outside of gnuemacs as well) plus the editing strengths of gnuemacs. it is fast since you don't have to call up an editor to send a message. although it may not look as fancy as sun's mailtool or dan heller's mush, i find it much more efficient to use. i've heard good things about elm as well (but they hadn't used the gnuemacs/mh mailer yet. ;-) Unfortunately I don't have access to gnuemacs but this was a useful pointer anyway. Finally, Mark Feldman (feldman@edu.umd.umd5) expressed interest due to work he is involved in: >We are attempting to provide an electronic mail system for everyone on campus, including undergrads, grads, faculty, and staff. Currently, everyone with an account on one of our computers has email access, but not everyone has a computer account. The target community is approximately 50,000 people. Initially, our plans call for a text-based interface that can run on ordinary semi-intelligent ASCII terminals. It will uses curses to provide screen control and rudimentary windows. In the future, we would like to write an interface to run on the various X-window workstations around campus, as well as the Apple Macintosh. (me again) So thanks everyone who replied to me. I also got a number of messages expressing interest and encouraging me in my attempt. I'm now in the middle of developing my mailer, using the Xr toolbox and building on top of elm. You never know, it might appear on the net someday! Thanks again, everyone. -- Paul Davison, Computing Lab., U of Newcastle upon Tyne, Tyne & Wear, UK JANET: pd@uk.ac.newcastle.cheviot ARPA: pd%cheviot.newcastle.ac.uk@cs.ucl.ac.uk UUCP: <UK>!ukc!cheviot!pd
mayer@hplabsz.HPL.HP.COM (Niels Mayer) (08/22/87)
Here's some references on more advanced issues in mail HCI, dealing especially with mail messages as prestructured "Frames" that can be interpreted on the receiving end to do "intelligent" things. You might also to look at The Coordinator (Action Technologies Inc + Terry Winograd, Stanford U.) and the Information Lens (Malone et al at MIT). The former is a product that runs on IBM PC clones, and the latter is a research project that (as far as I can tell) runs on Xerox Dandelion/Daybreak style lisp machines. * Winograd, T. & Flores, F (1986). "Understanding Computers and Cognition: A New Foundation for Design". Ablex Publishing. -- talks about the coordinator near the end of the book. * Winograd, Terry A. "A Language/Action Perspective on the Design of Cooperative Work" Stanford University Departement of Computer Science Tech Report. (STAN-CS-87-1158). -- talks about the Coordinator system in the framework of the theory of speech acts / conversations for action, etc. * "Captured Conversations", Release 1.0, 24 September 1986. -- reviews the Coordinator and the Info Lens side by side. * "Intelligent Information-Sharing Systems" Malone, Thomas W et al. May 1987 Vol30 Num5, Communications of the ACM. -- talks about the Information Lens system. Has anybody out there used the Coordinator? I've got a demo disk of the Coordinator sitting on my "ToDo" pile, but it only runs on IBM PC style machines and I've happily forgotten how to run those stupid things... -- Niels Mayer.