An Animated Help System for Java Applets

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1 Vol. 0 No Java Java Web An Animated Help System for Java Applets Motoki Miura and Jiro Tanaka Java applets are executed on Web browsers. Most applets are publicized with textual explanations. However,there is a gap between textual instructions and graphical interfaces which makes it hard for users to properly manipulate the applets. We have developed a system which enables the applet-developers to prepare an animated help for their applets. The animated help means to perform demonstration of the applet s behavior with a pseudo mouse cursor. Our system generates animated help from captured event-objects which occur due to user actions. To edit the animated help more efficiently,we have introduced the concept of command instead of event-object stream. Each command should be identified by a label which reflects its meaning. For generating commands,the system loads command production rules which map a set of event-objects to a command and give a label to it. The label can be used not only for editing but also for showing the abstract list of the demonstration for the user. We have implemented the system as a plug-in for the target applet. The developers can add animated help functions without any changes in the target applet s source/class files. For both users and developers animated help is intuitive and effective. 1. Java HTML Web Doctoral Program in Engineering, University of Tsukuba Institute of Information Sciences and Electronics, University of Tsukuba GUI Graphical User Interface 1

2 ),2) Java 2. Java 3. Jedemo (1) initialize (2) recording (3) playing Java Java Virtual Machine Java Virtual Machine 3.2 3) 1 HTML <applet code="targetapplet.class"> </applet>

3 Vol. 0 No. 0 Java 3 Target Applet Jedemo manager (applet) Web Browser Java Virtual Machine 1 Fig. 1 A graphical image of AppletViewer Model. <applet code="managerapplet.class"> <param name="target" value="targetapplet"> <param name="helpfile" valie="sample.jdm"> </applet> TargetApplet.class 1 Jedemo manager Target Applet emulation Target Applet Target Applet 3.3 Java Java Recordable Recordable addevent() MouseListener, MouseMotionListener, ContainerListener, ActionListener 4 java.lang.reflect.proxy ActionListener ActionMessenger public class ActionMessenger implements ActionListener{ Recordable rec; // public ActionMessenger(Recordable rec) { this.rec = rec; } public void actionperformed(actionevent e){ { rec.addevent(e); } // rec } Component.dispatchEvent() Java 1 1 1

4 Table 1 Event Icons Event MousePressed MouseDragged MouseReleased MouseClicked in MouseEntered out MouseExited MouseMoved C+ ComponentAdded C- ComponentRemoved A ActionPerformed

5 Vol. 0 No. 0 Java 5 Fig. 2 2 JedemoAuthor JedemoAuthor: The target applet and its component structure. 6. JedemoAuthor Java 4 (1) HTML (2) (3) (4) 6.1 JedemoAuthor Java HTML HTML Web JedemoAuthor 2 JedemoAuthor HTML GraphApplet JedemoAuthor 6 3 JedemoAuthor Fig. 3 JedemoAuthor: Recorded event objects. 6.2 [Listeners] [Add Listeners] JedemoAuthor JedemoAuthor [EventSpool]

6 1959 Fig. 4 4 Applied separator to event objects. 5 Fig.

3 [set Separator] 1 [apply Separator] 4 [add pattern] 5 [generate

6 Fig. 4 4 Applied separator to event objects. 5 Fig. 5 Applied abbreviation to event objects [set Separator] 1 [apply Separator] 4 [add pattern] 5 [generate CommandRules] 5 1 [CommandRules] Fig. 6 Editing a label production rule. 6.4 [CommandGenerator] [CommandRules]

Vol. 0 No. 0 Java 7 7 Fig. 7 Defined command rules. Fig. 8 8 Command labels generated automatically.

Object Identifier @press.getlabel() getlabel() 2 JedemoAuthor HTML Web 6.

7 Vol. 0 No. 0 Java 7 7 Fig. 7 Defined command rules. Fig. 8 8 Command labels @remove 2 Table 2 Object getlabel() 2 JedemoAuthor HTML Web 6.5 JedemoAnimator [start DEMONSTRA- TION]

8 1959 9 JedemoAnimator: Fig. 9 JedemoAnimator: Playing animation help. C- C+ 8.

8 JedemoAnimator: Fig. 9 JedemoAnimator: Playing animation help. C- C+ 8. OperatingSystem Macintosh AppleScript 4) X Window System 5) Tcl/Tk 6) AIDE project 7) AIDEWORKBENCH SmallTalk Java JavaHelp 8) JavaHelp API 9. 1) Piyawadee Sukaviriya and James D. Foley. CouplingA UI Framework with Automatic Generation of Context-Sensitive Animated Help. In Proceedings UIST 90, pages , ) Krishna Bharat and Piyawadee Sukaviriya. AnimatingUser Interfaces UsingAnimation

9 Vol. 0 No. 0 Java 9 Servers. In Proceedings UIST 93, pages 69 79, ) Motoki Miura and Jiro Tanaka. A Framework for Event-driven Demonstration based on the Java Toolkit. In Asia Pacific Computer Human Interaction (APCHI-98), pages , July ) Apple Computer,Inc. Introduction to the Macintosh Family Second Edition. 5) Krishna Bharat, Piyawadee Sukaviriya, and Scott Hudson. Synthesized Interaction on the X Window System. Technical report, Graphics and Usability Center, Georgia Tech, USA, ) Charles Crowley. TkReplay: Record and Replay for Tk. In USENIX Tcl/Tk Workshop Toronto, pages , crowley/papers/replay.tk95.html, July ) Philippe P. Piernot and Marc P. Yvon. The AIDEProject: An Application-Independent Demonstrational Environment, chapter 18, pages In Watch What I Do : Programming by Demonstration, The MIT Press, ) Sun Microsystems Inc. JavaHelp Homepage, ( ) ( ) ACM Ph.D. in Computer Science ACM IEEE Computer Society

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