MVC (model-view-controller) based multi-modal authoring tool and development environment

• US 6,996,800 B2
• Filed: 12/04/2001
• Issued: 02/07/2006
• Est. Priority Date: 12/04/2000
• Status: Expired due to Term

• Current Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Lucassen, John M., Maes, Stephane H.
• Primary Examiner(s): Zhen, Wei Y.
• Application Number:
  US10/007,037
• Publication Number:
  US 20030023953A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,526 Days
• Field of Search: 717106-109, 717104-105, 715/513
• US Class Current: 717/106
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 8/38 for implementing user interfaces

Abstract

Application development tools and method for building multi-channel, multi-device and multi-modal applications, and in particular, to systems and methods for developing applications whereby a user can interact in parallel with the same information via a multiplicity of channels and user interfaces, while a unified, synchronized views of the information are presented across the various channels or devices deployed by the user to interact with the information. In a preferred embodiment, application frameworks and development tools are preferably based on a MVC (Model-View-Controller) design paradigm that is adapted to provide synchronized multi-modal interactions. Multi-channel authoring can be developed using a similar methodology.

Claims

1. An application development system, comprising:

a computing system comprising means for storing and executing an application development tool, wherein the application development tool comprises;

a plurality of modality-specific editors for generating one or more modality specific representations of an application, which comprise means for flagging a component of a modality-specific representation to indicate that the interaction associated with the component is not synchronized across other modality-specific views;

a model generator for generating a modality-independent representation from a modality-specific representation and for generating a modality-specific representation from the modality-independent representation; and

a plurality of rendering units for rendering corresponding modality-specific representations for view by a user; and

a user interface system to enable user interaction with the tool and to present modality specific and modality independent representations of an application to a user while building the application using the tool.

2. The system of claim 1, wherein the rendering units comprise browsers.

3. The system of claim 1, wherein at least one modality-specific editor comprises a WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get) editor.

4. The system of claim 1, wherein the user interface system comprises a display for displaying a view of the modality-independent and modality specific representations.

5. The system of claim 4, wherein a portion of the displayed modality-independent representation is highlighted to indicate that the portion was non-deterministically selected by the tool based on a modality-specific representation.

6. The system of claim 1, wherein a modification in a modality-specific representation is automatically reflected in the modality-independent representation and at least one other modality-specific representation.

7. The system of claim 1, wherein each modality-specific editor comprises a plug-in.

8. The system of claim 1, wherein the tool supports a single authoring programming model.

9. The system of claim 8, wherein the single authoring programming model comprises an interaction-based programming model.

10. The system of claim 9, wherein the interaction-based programming model comprises an interaction model to describe user interaction with the application and a data model to describe data that is manipulated during the interaction.

11. The system of claim 10, wherein the interaction-based programming model further comprises meta-information for customizing the application to one or more particular channels.

12. The system of claim 1, wherein the tool supports a multiple authoring programming model.

13. The system of claim 12, wherein the multiple authoring programming model comprises a plurality of channel-specific snippets for each of a plurality of modalities that are synchronized with each other.

14. The system of claim 13, wherein the synchronization between channel-specific interaction components are expressed by events in one channel-specific snippet that triggers an event handler in another channel-specific snippet.