A framework for collaborative and distributed web-based design
Proceedings of the 36th annual ACM/IEEE Design Automation Conference
ICCD '00 Proceedings of the 2000 IEEE International Conference on Computer Design: VLSI in Computers & Processors
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Traditionally, a stand-alone client application is rendered collaborative for members of a team either by sharing its view or by re-writing it as a collaborative client. However, it may not be possible to anticipate in advance all preferences for collaboration, hence such a client may appear confusing to some of the team members. We propose a novel client/server architecture for tk-based applications: rendering any stand-alone client collaborative, without a code re-write. Participants themselves are allowed to dynamically reconfigure the inter-client synchronization table to suit their changing preferences and needs. The CollabWiseTk toolkit, based on the proposed architecture, is an extension of the tk functionality to support collaboration. It re-defines the existing tk commands such that the entire tk widget set is rendered collaborative for use with multiple users. We demonstrate the capabilities of the CollabWiseTk toolkit by readily rendering collaborative most of the Tk Widget Demonstrations, distributed with the core Tcl/Tk. The toolkit is implemented in pure tcl and it ports to all platforms.