A visual environment for dynamic web application composition

Abstract

HTML-based interface technologies enable end-users to easily use various remote Web applications. However, it is difficult for end-users to compose new integrated tools of both existing Web applications and legacy local applications such as spreadsheets, chart tools and database. In this paper, the authors propose a new framework where end-users can wrap remote Web applications into visual components called pads, and functionally combine them together through drag & drop-paste operations. The authors use, as the basis, a meme media architecture IntelligentPad that was proposed by the second author. In the IntelligentPad architecture, each visual component called a pad has slots as data I/O ports. By pasting a pad onto another pad users can integrate their functionalities. The framework presented in this paper allows users to visually create a wrapper pad for any Web application by defining HTML nodes within the Web application to work as slots. Examples of such a node include input-forms and text strings on Web pages. Users can directly manipulate both wrapped Web applications and wrapped local legacy tools on their desktop screen to define application linkages among them. Since no programming expertise is required to wrap Web applications or to functionally combine them together, end-users can build new integrated tools of both wrapped Web applications and local legacy applications.