Constraint-based tools for building user interfaces

  • Authors:
  • Alan Borning;Robert Duisberg

  • Affiliations:
  • Univ. of Washington, Seattle;Tektronix, Inc., Beaverton, OR

  • Venue:
  • ACM Transactions on Graphics (TOG) - Special issue on user interface software
  • Year:
  • 1986

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Abstract

A constraint describes a relation that must be maintained. Constraints provide a useful mechanism to aid in the construction of interactive graphical user interfaces. They can be used to maintain consistency between data and a view of the data, to maintain consistency among multiple views, to specify layout, and to specify relations between events and responses for describing animations of interactive systems and event-driven simulations. Object-oriented techniques for constraint representation and satisfaction are presented, and a range of examples that demonstrate the practical use of static and temporal constraints for such purposes is presented. These examples include animations of algorithms and physics simulations, and constructing user-interface elements such as file browsers, views onto statistical data, and an interactive monitor or a simulated operating system.