Abstract

Traditionally, interactive applications have been difficult to build, modify and extend. These integrated applications provide bounded functionality, have a single thread of control and a fixed user interface that must anticipate every-thing the user will need. Current workstations allow several processes to share the screen. With proper com-munication between processes, it is possible to escape previous models for application develop-ment and evolution. ConMan is a high-level visual language we use on an IRIS workstation that lets users dynamically build and modify graphics applica-tions. To do this, a system designer dis-integrates complex applications into modular components. By interactively connecting simple components, the user constructs a complete graphics application that matches the needs of a task. A connection manager controls the flow of data between individual components. As a result, we replace the usual user-machine dialog with a dynamic live performance that is orches-trated by the user.

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