An investigation in the separation of the application from its user interface

Abstract

The separation of an interactive program's application from its user interface is investigated. In order to support good human interaction, the interface requires a deep knowledge of the application. This is in direct conflict with the concept of separation of these two components. The study is concerned with seeing how well this conflict can be resolved in the context of graphics programs. Generic User Interface Package {GUIP) has been developed in Turbo Pascal 5.5, making extensive use of the inheritance and polymorphic features of object-oriented program­ming. Although some features considered part of the interface were not handled by GUIP, a substantial separation of the interface from the application was achieved .