The development of user interface tools for the Computer Aided Prototyping System

Abstract

The Computer Aided Prototyping System (CAPS) was created to rapidly prototype real-time systems in order to determine if the system requirements can be met early in the development cycle. CAPS consists of several software tools that automatically generate an executable Ada model of the proposed system from a given specification. This thesis describes the development of a user interface for CAPS. The user interface supports the design, modification and execution of the software prototype throughout the entire prototyping life cycle. It makes uses of X Windows and advanced windowing techniques and allows the user to run the tools concurrently. The user interface incorporates a separate tool interface which controls the interaction between CAPS tools and the user interface. The graphic editor uses advanced graphics capabilities to give the user more flexibility in editing a graphical representation of the prototype. It automatically produces a formal representation of the prototype to be used by the other tools in CAPS.