ISSGS%NUSVM.BITNET@mitvma.mit.edu (Gurminder Singh) (05/21/91)
A UIMS that we are developing may be of use to some of you folks. The name of the UIMS is "Druid" (Demonstrational Rapid User Interface Development). Druid currently runs on SPARCstation 1+s under theX11 R3 or R4 window system and the OSF/Motif 1.0 toolkit. It generates UIL and some C code. The UIL and C programs generated by the UIMS can be compiled using standard compilers, so there is no proprietary librarie or compiler that you need to use. Details on Driud are available in the following two papers: Singh G, Kok CH, Ngan TY, "Druid: A System for Demonstrational Rapid User Interface Development". Proc. ACM SIGGRAPH Symp on User Interface Software and Technology (UIST'90). ACM, NY, 1990, pp: 167-177 Singh G, Kok CH, Ngan TY, "Creating Graphical Interfaces through Graphical Interaction" Proc. IEEE Workshop on Visual Langauges, IEEE Computer Society presse, Los, Alamitos, 1990, pp: 187-193. Druid is intended to be a comprehensive UIMS, i.e., when completed it will provide support for creating presentation components (widgets, layout etc.) and dialogue control (i.e. command sequences etc) for X and Motif interfaces. We will soon be releasing the presentation component of the UIMS as a commercial product. This system will allow you to create Motif interfaces using visual techniques. It comes with an inference system which helps users create attractive looking interfaces by guessing from their imprecise actions. As you add widgets in the interface, the UIMS guesses the new widgets relation to already existing widgets in the interface. The example relations include same-size-as, various types of alignments, and attachments. On confirmation from the user, these relations are ly automatically executed by the UIMS. This system will be available soon (two months?) as a product. No, I don't know how much it will cost. Gurminder Singh Institute of Systems Science National University of Singapore Kent Ridge, Singapore 0511.