Towards Including Layout Properties for Modeling Graphical User Interfaces: Generic Properties for GUI Metamodels

摘要

Software applications have come to simplify the task for users and offer them automated functionalities. These applications must therefore contain high-performance and efficient user interfaces in order to translate correctly the user's needs. Indeed, several elements contribute to the ergonomics of these interfaces, among them the position and layout of the graphical components which play a very important role to ensure this. However, the design and implementation of such user interfaces for different platform using several programming languages can be tedious and time consuming, especially when the application gathers a large number of interfaces or screens. Since the model driven engineering aims at automating the process of development and raising the level of abstraction, we can use model driven principles to help users choose the right component in the right position on the interface. That is why we present an approach that combines model driven engineering principles and the graphical user interfaces to handle automated layout and position.