Intelligent Reusable User Interface Components

This paper is about implementing and using intelligent reusable user interface components. Motivation for such components is provided. A standardized approach for constructing and using them using X11, OSF/Motif and C++ is introduced. A sample implementation of the paradigm is introduced. The sample implementation has recently been adopted as the standard method for creating and using reusable user interface components within Nokia Telecommunications Corporation. A future development concept is introduced as “User Interface Factory”. Introduction & Motivation The Why Writing interactive software is difficult. Writing reusable software is difficult. Writing intelligent software is difficult. Why would one then try to combine these theree difficulties? The first input for the project came from the sheer size of the software project I am involved in, the Nokia Operating and Maintenance Center for Cellular Networks (OMC). The system consists of over 2 million lines of C++ code. In order to keep the project manageable, we needed to separate the layout and the functionality of the system. For this we chose an architechture we call MVC++[1]. This architectural solution is an essential part of the OMT++ methodology [2] widely used in Nokia Telecommunications Corporation and beyond. OMT++ is a modification and enhancement of the OMT approach [3]. OMT notation is also used in the meta models throughout of this paper.