The design of an interface editor for the Computer-aided Prototyping System

Abstract

This thesis focuses on the design and implementation of a new interface editor for the Computer-Aided Prototyping System (CAPS), which de- couples the user interface from the real-time prototype. Using this design, a CAPS user creates a prototype with an interface development tool and a Prototyping System Description Language (PSDL) editor. This real-time prototype executes on two processors using a client/server architecture; the user interface executes on a client, and the real-time PSDL application executes on a server. In addition, this thesis includes demonstrations, with source code, which implement the design. The demonstrations show that Java development tools can be used to create a high-quality user interface for a PSDL application. A socket connection was used to implement the client/server communication. The demonstrations were successful, but the socket programming model is too primitive for the new design. Therefore, a high-level client/server architecture, such as the Common Object Resource Broker Architecture (CORBA), is required for future development of the design