1. 25 April 2000 SEESCOASEESCOA STWW - Programma Implementation of a component- based UI Deliverable 4.2

2. SEESCOASEESCOA Contents uObjectives uUI Guidelines for Embedded Systems uDescription of a User Interface uUser Interface Components  UI Components – implementation uConclusions

3. SEESCOASEESCOA Objectives Deliverable 4.2 uHuman-computer interaction in the context of embedded systems wDesign guidelines wUI description uComponent-based technologies for User Interfaces uPractical work, design and implementation wSEESCOA component system case

4. SEESCOASEESCOA UI Guidelines for Embedded Systems uGeneral guidelines wKeep it simple! wAssume there will be no conventional I/O devices w… (Deliverable 4.2, p5) uCase study: implementation of UI controls for Palm w“Unconventional“ input method: stylus with a touch-screen wLimited resources wSmall screen wIn Case study: remote control to operate camera surveillance system

5. SEESCOASEESCOA UI Guidelines for Embedded Systems uUI controls for Palm computer (example) wJoystick Control for Palm, testing the stylus  Combining User Interface elements: save screen space and add up to functionality  Uses direct manipulation  Pinpoint in cross is attached to a virtual spring: gives a kind of push and pull feeling with the stylus  e.g.:

6. SEESCOASEESCOA UI Guidelines for Embedded Systems (2) uWhat do we need? wLook-and-feel should be consistent for family of products wLook-and-feel should be delegated to experts (e.g. graphical, non technical) wRapid prototyping is extremely important wPossibility of embedding constraints in User Interface description (e.g. screen update) wDescribing a User Interface, independent from the platform

7. SEESCOASEESCOA Description of a User Interface uA possible solution: using XML... wXML is a meta language wAlready used for describing HCI (WML, XUL, SpeechML, VoxML,...) wCan describe UI device independent (e.g. UIML) wCross-platform wTo work with XML, the designer does not need a technical background we.g: Harmonia UIML, Glade,... wUser Interface becomes reusable by its XML description wXML can describe alternative kinds of human-system

8. SEESCOASEESCOA Description of a User Interface (2) u... with Java wXML-parsers for Java (plenty!)  IBM Alphaworks Xerces, XP, JAXP wNot small enough - write our own wUsed in SEESCOA uXML integration in Java Component Model w"Long time" serialization we.g. IBM Bean Markup Language uUI becomes "downloadable" wA User Interface can be downloaded as an XML description, and reused on a remote machine wExtra information can be contained in the XML description of the User Interface wDemo

9. SEESCOASEESCOA Description of a User Interface (3) uImplementation wJava User Interface to XML wUsing Java reflection mechanism wUser Interface converted into XML and transported (file, socket stream,...) wProblems to solve:  XML parsing is too slow and consumes too much memory  AWT is not as consistent as Swing, requires ad hoc solutions  Redundancy  Layout Management, preferably Java independent  Class definitions of UI are required for deserialization

10. SEESCOASEESCOA Description of a User Interface (4) uImplementation (continued) wFuture work  A more generic approach  Layout Management  Event Handling  Redundancy checking  Faster and smaller XML-parser  Integration with SEESCOA Component System  Java Independent, XML to... generation

11. SEESCOASEESCOA User Interface Components uActiveX wActiveX Controls wCOM/DCOM wMicrosoft Windows CE uJavaBeans wOriginal purpose: creation of User Interface building blocks  Available in “ standard ” Java and PersonalJava wEasy Java component model wFits in choices made for implementation

12. SEESCOASEESCOA UI Components - implementation u1 main component  1 sub-component per UI (e.g. a local, a remote, … ) UIMain (the UI component) UI1 UI2 UI3

13. SEESCOASEESCOA UI Components – implementation (2) uRealization of sub-components wIn JavaBeans  Represent GUI parts  Handle all the GUI-events  AWT-components  Send events to sub-component wOut JavaBeans  interaction with other components  Checking password Sub-component JavaBean

14. SEESCOASEESCOA UI Components - implementation (3) uExample working of UI component MainPanelLocalUI MainUI Sub- component Event Admin Admin Accepted SetAdmin() History Event History RequestInfo SetHistory() GenerateInfo Info

15. SEESCOASEESCOA Conclusions uFurther insight in UI development for Embedded Systems is gained concerning wConsistency wDesign wSEESCOA component system uUsage of XML for describing User Interfaces for Embedded systems wThere are many possibilities wContinuing to explore possibilities

16. SEESCOASEESCOA Conclusions (2) uExploration possibilities of existing technologies concerning HCI for embedded systems (e.g. Palm UI) uCase of a User Interface was developed using SEESCOA component system uour experience gives us a foundation for a more general approach.