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List:       berlin-design
Subject:    Re: [Berlin-design] Help?
From:       Stefan Seefeld <seefelds () magellan ! umontreal ! ca>
Date:       1999-12-31 19:49:24
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Ben Bucksch wrote:
> 
> Ben Bucksch wrote:
> > I'm currently evaluating the more or les direct usage of UML to describe
> > taskets. This may sound far-fetched, but I will explain later.
> 
> Playing around with that idea, it looks like the UML description
> represents a new layer above taskets.
> 
> Taskets describe the organisation of the UI, while the UML describes the
> logic (of the UI). Mapping from UML to taskets is possible (and to
> achieve by the "UMLUIKit"), but not straight-forward, as the UML
> description looks independant of UI approaches and taskets are not.

I'm a bit confused about your usage of UML. Aren't you comparing apples
with oranges ? For me, UML has been a tool (a language) to express class and
object hierarchies, event sequences and other relationships in. It is by no means 
more abstract than any of the kits we are dealing with. It's simply a completely 
different kind of animal.

I agree with the need to separate logic from presentation. However, this is 
done on *all* levels, it doesn't need a special layer as you propose.
In any case, the interesting thing is that logic and presentation aren't two
orthogonal things. The possible presentation of a UI will set the frame for
the logic behind it. Even though we try to think of an interface in purely
semantic terms, we'll always be inspired by whatever concrete interfaces we
already know. So for example if we think of 'pushing a button' as a task, we
should step back and remember that the very concept of a button might become
questionable if looked at from a sufficiently distant point. (Well, may be
button was a bad example since it is even outside a computer a fairly ubiquitous
tool. But what about Scrollbars, Menus, Popup Windows ?)

Most of the tasks in a conventional UI like choosing, clicking, zooming, scrolling
etc. are pretty much bound to the visual context they live in. It is ok to have
kits which know how to build widgets for them but it might be interesting to go
further and see how else a computer bound activity can be described so it can be
equally well be dealt with in a 3D world or a purely acustic environment.

Regards,	Stefan
_______________________________________________________              
              
Stefan Seefeld
Departement de Physique
Universite de Montreal
email: seefelds@magellan.umontreal.ca

_______________________________________________________

      ...ich hab' noch einen Koffer in Berlin...

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