A graphical-user-interface-design paradigm based on production rules

Abstract

Creating graphical user interfaces (GUIs) is a difficult, tedious task. Current GUI programming tools suffer from a number of deficiencies, such as complexity, lack of composition operations, difficulty integrating the GUI creation system with other tools, and inability to describe low-level interactions. In this work, we describe a visual language, BluePrint, for specifying GUIs that addresses some of the difficulties of creating GUIs with current programming tools. BluePrint is a rule-based language that allows description of graphical properties by graphical means, and permits simple specification of interactive behaviors. It uses composable geometric operators to express geometric relationships. BluePrint takes a static, pictorial representation of the rules that specify the interface, which it compiles into an event-driven handler for user input. The resulting interface is efficient and can describe low-level interactions, such as dragging, stretching and other interactive behaviors of the graphical objects in a GUI.