Computer Human Interaction

1
Advanced Widgets For Eclipse
R. Ian Bull, Casey Best, Margaret-Anne Storey

• Computer Human Interaction Software Engineering
  Lab
• Department of Computer Science, University of
  Victoria

2
Overview
Overview
Overview

• Motivation
• Approach
• Architecture
• Related Work
• Future Work
• Conclusion

Motivation
Motivation
Approach
Approach
Architecture
Architecture
Future Work
Related Work
Conclusion
Future Work
Conclusion
3
Motivation
Overview
Overview

• There is currently a large body of research
  dedicated to helping people understand complex
  data
• NCI Ontology 60,000 concepts
• Software Architectures (1MLoc)
• Process Diagrams
• Information Visualization Toolkits are often in
  the form of applications or complex frameworks
• This research will not be adopted by industry
  unless the application developers can easily
  leverage the knowledge of the visualization
  experts

Motivation
Motivation
Approach
Approach
Architecture
Architecture
Future Work
Related Work
Conclusion
Future Work
Conclusion
4
Motivation
Overview
Overview
Motivation
Motivation
Approach
Approach
Architecture
Architecture
Future Work
Related Work
Conclusion
Future Work
Conclusion
5
Motivation
Overview
Overview
Motivation
Motivation
Approach
Approach
Architecture
Architecture
Future Work
Related Work
Conclusion
Future Work
Conclusion
6
Approach
Overview
Overview

• Create a set of Advanced Widgets building on
  our knowledge from developing
• A Program Understanding Tool (Creole)
• An Ontology Visualization Tool (Jambalaya)
• A CVS Comprehension Tool (Xia)
• and other Zoomable Nested Hierarchical Graph
  Tools (SHriMP)
• Extracted the building blocks from these tools
  and developed the technology as a Domain
  Independent Widget
• Used Content Providers to give the programmer
  control over how the widget works

Motivation
Motivation
Approach
Approach
Architecture
Architecture
Future Work
Related Work
Conclusion
Future Work
Conclusion
7
Approach
Overview
Overview

• Because the widgets are domain independent they
  can be used to visualize many types of data
• Using Figure (Label) Providers, developers can
  create a customized widget for their application
• We have created 3 such widgets
• UML Widget
• Simple Graph Widget
• Nested Graph Widget

Motivation
Motivation
Approach
Approach
Architecture
Architecture
Future Work
Related Work
Conclusion
Future Work
Conclusion
8
Architecture
Overview
Overview

• Developed in SWT Draw2D
• The canvas has been developed as a Zoomable User
  Interface (ZUI) to allow for smooth zooming,
  panning and animation
• The Widgets have been built to follow the JFace
  Conventions

Motivation
Motivation
Approach
Approach
Architecture
Architecture
Future Work
Related Work
Conclusion
Future Work
Conclusion
9
Architecture
Overview
Overview

• Developed in SWT Draw2D
• The canvas has been developed as a Zoomable User
  Interface (ZUI) to allow for smooth zooming,
  panning and animation
• The Widgets have been built to follow the JFace
  Conventions

Motivation
Motivation
Approach
Approach
Architecture
Architecture
Future Work
Related Work
Conclusion
Future Work
Conclusion
10
Architecture
Overview
Overview

• Content Providers are used to keep both the data
  and display Domain Independent
• The data doesnt have to implement any special
  interfaces
• Layouts have been extracted into a separate
  project so they can be used in a display
  independent manner
• Tools can be plugged-in to extend the
  functionality of the widgets

Motivation
Motivation
Approach
Approach
Architecture
Architecture
Future Work
Related Work
Conclusion
Future Work
Conclusion
11
Architecture
Overview
Overview

• We are using several optimizations to help
  improve the performance of both speed and memory
  requirements
• On demand loading
• Unloading of non-visible entities
• Remove entities too small to see

Motivation
Motivation
Approach
Approach
Architecture
Architecture
Future Work
Related Work
Conclusion
Future Work
Conclusion
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Architecture
Overview
Overview

• Using the flexible API we have created
• A Zoomable File Browser
• EMF Visualizations
• UML Browsers

Motivation
Motivation
Approach
Approach
Architecture
Architecture
Future Work
Related Work
Conclusion
Future Work
Conclusion
13
Related Work
Overview

• Snap Information Visualizations with multiple
  coordinated views
• SHriMP Simple Hierarchical Multiple
  Perspectives, a zoomable nested graph
  visualization tool
• Jazz / Picollo A Zoomable User Interface API
• GEF Graphical Editor Framework

Motivation
Approach
Architecture
Related Work
Future Work
Conclusion
14
Future Work
Overview

• Additional Content Providers
• Adjacency Matrix
• Adjacency List
• Composite Arcs
• Abstracted relationships to summarize low level
  relationships
• More Examples
• Create more concrete applications using the AWE

Motivation
Approach
Architecture
Related Work
Future Work
Conclusion
15
Conclusion
Overview

• The AWE is working and conforms to the JFace
  Standards
• The AWE is written entirely in Java / SWT and
  works as a plug-in for Eclipse
• The AWE is available for download
• http//www.thechiselgroup.org/awe
• Demos will be available tonight at the poster
  session!

Motivation
Approach
Architecture
Related Work
Future Work
Conclusion