Norio Sanada

A GUI software development system for digital AV applications

The scale of software on digital AV appliances that handle large-volume multichannel digital data has been increased by the GUIs (graphical user interfaces) loaded on them in recent years. In addition, the GUIs of AV appliances use remote controls having cursor keys. Focus management must be performed by these to point to the object of operation, in contrast to the mouse, which is capable of pointing on the entire screen. Since focus management changes with changes in the specifications of GUIs, such as screen layouts and the like, software may not be reusable. In this paper, a development system that attempts to improve the productivity of GUI software requiring focus management is discussed from the points of view of (1) a software design model based on an object-oriented MVC model, (2) an execution model with good efficiency corresponding to the design model, (3) development tools performing synthesis of GUI software and automatic generation of focus management procedures, and (4) applications and evaluations of the system. In an example of the application of the system, software productivity with a GUI specification change was improved by a factor of three.