User interface continuations

ABSTRACT

Dialog boxes that collect parameters for commands often create ephemeral, unnatural interruptions of a program's normal execution flow, encouraging the user to complete the dialog box as quickly as possible in order for the program to process that command. In this paper we examine the idea of turning the act of collecting parameters from a user into a first class object called a user interface continuation. Programs can create user interface continuations by specifying what information is to be collected from the user and supplying a callback (i.e., a continuation) to be notified with the collected information. A partially completed user interface continuation can be saved as a new command, much as currying and partially evaluating a function with a set of parameters produces a new function. Furthermore, user interface continuations, like other continuation-passing paradigms, can be used to allow program execution to continue uninterrupted while the user determines a command's parameters at his or her leisure.

REFERENCES

• 1: 1. Huynh, D., Karger, D., and Quan, D. Haystack: A Platform for Creating, Organizing and Visualizing Information Using RDF. In Proceedings of the Semantic Web Workshop, The Eleventh World Wide Web Conference 2002.
• 2: 2. Quan, D., Huynh, D., and Karger, D. Haystack: A Platform for Authoring End User Semantic Web Applications. To appear in the Proceedings of the International Semantic Web Conference 2003.
• 3: 3. Resource Description Framework (RDF) Model and Syntax Specification. http://www.w3.org/TR/1999/ REC-rdf-syntax-19990222/.
• 4: 4. Quan, D., Karger, D., and Huynh, D. RDF Authoring Environments for End Users. In Proceedings of Semantic Web Foundations and Application Technologies 2003.
• 5: Brad A. Myers , David S. Kosbie, Reusable hierarchical command objects, Proceedings of the SIGCHI conference on Human factors in computing systems: common ground, p.260-267, April 13-18, 1996, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada [doi>10.1145/238386.238526]
• 6: Michael Terry , Elizabeth D. Mynatt, Side views: persistent, on-demand previews for open-ended tasks, Proceedings of the 15th annual ACM symposium on User interface software and technology, October 27-30, 2002, Paris, France [doi>10.1145/571985.571996]
• 7: 7. Steele, G. and Sussman, G. LAMBDA: The Ultimate Imperative. MIT Artificial Intelligence Laboratory Memo 353.
• 8: Brad Vander Zanden , Brad A. Myers, Automatic, look-and-feel independent dialog creation for graphical user interfaces, Proceedings of the SIGCHI conference on Human factors in computing systems: Empowering people, p.27-34, April 01-05, 1990, Seattle, Washington, United States [doi>10.1145/97243.97248]

INDEX TERMS

Primary Classification:
  H. Information Systems
  H.5 INFORMATION INTERFACES AND PRESENTATION (I.7)
      H.5.2 User Interfaces (D.2.2, H.1.2, I.3.6)
          Subjects: Graphical user interfaces (GUI)

Additional Classification:
  G. Mathematics of Computing
  G.1 NUMERICAL ANALYSIS
      G.1.5 Roots of Nonlinear Equations
          Subjects: Continuation (homotopy) methods

  H. Information Systems
  H.5 INFORMATION INTERFACES AND PRESENTATION (I.7)
      H.5.2 User Interfaces (D.2.2, H.1.2, I.3.6)
          Subjects: Interaction styles (e.g., commands, menus, forms, direct manipulation)

General Terms:
Design, Standardization

Keywords:
continuations, dialog boxes