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ASE2 CARD CATALOG ENTRY |
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ASE2 CARD CATALOG ENTRY |
Instructions:
Ada System Certifier_1 1.0
Date/Time of Processing: Wednesday 25 May 1994 01:34:35Am
Overall Assessment of System: OK
Classification of System: C
Basis of Classification --
Syntax Errors PASS
Completeness PASS
Independence from External Libraries FAIL
Independence from a Specific Ada Compiler FAIL
Explanations for failures --
System withs non-standard library units that are not provided
System contains compiler-specific pragmas or uses Machine_Code
Number of ...
Files 407
Library Units 462
Lines 96291
Statements 25694
Comments 31260
Unidentified Withed Units --
32 unidentified withed units
The Chiron system provides tools for assisting in the development of graphical user interfaces and provides a run-time system for managing and supporting their dynamic behavior.
The objective of the Chiron system is to reduce long-term costs associated with developing and maintaining graphical user interface (GUI) software. It achieves this objective by providing key interface layers which are resilient to change. In particular, Chiron strongly separates an application from its user interface code, as well as separating the user interface code from the underlying toolkit substrates. Chiron supports the construction of GUIs which provide multiple coordinated views of application objects and allows flexible restructuring of the configuration of those views. Chiron supports a concurrent model of control. While the Chiron architecture supports heterogeneous, multi-lingual systems, the development tools which are part of this release only support clients (applications) written in Ada.
Chiron is a distributed system. The Chiron server and clients run in separate Unix processes. Within a client, artists are active interface agents that are bound to one or more objects. They encapsulate decisions about how objects should be depicted (presentations) as well as how they behave dynamically (dialogs). Multiple artists can be bound to a single object, providing coordinated multiple views of that object. A Chiron client is made up of application code, a set of artists, and client support code. The client support code implements initialization, event detection and routing, and communication with the server. Client support code is automatically generated by client building tools.
Chiron leverages from commercial GUI layout tools. Specifically, Chiron can be used with Sun Microsystem's DevGuide tool to create artists. For those aspects of GUIs which DevGuide is incapable of supporting (e.g. drawing on a canvas), DevGuide and Chiron tools can be used to create an artist template into which the additional graphical aspects can be added programmatically.
The Chiron server manages all aspects of the user interface that are not artist or application specific. It can be thought of as a virtual machine providing a high-level graphical "toolkit" interface to artists by means of an Abstract Depiction Hierarchy (ADH). The server receives ADH instructions from the artists and uses them to create and manipulate an internal abstract representation of the graphical interface. The representation is rendered to a concrete depiction (a user viewable image) via calls to the underlying window system. The server also listens for events from the window system (button push, menu selection, etc) and translates them to Chiron events before shipping them back to the appropriate client. The Chiron server provides flexibility in terms of windowing systems and toolkits, application languages, and process inter-connection topology. Although we currently only provide support for Ada clients, it is feasible to provide other language-specific interfaces to the server's ADH.
The Chiron model is highly concurrent. Most components maintain their own, and possibly multiple, threads of control. Thus, unlike most user interface architectures, Chiron avoids imposing sequential control upon applications, allowing the application, the user interface, and the server, to run in parallel.
Chiron 1.4 requires the X Window System, version 11 revision level 5, on a Sun 4 color or monochrome workstation. Chiron has been developed using the SunAda compiler version 1.1 and the gcc compiler v2.4.5.
Chiron makes use of XView version 3.0 and Motif version 1.2 to build the XView and Motif versions of the Chiron server. You will need at least one of these toolkits.
Chiron also requires Q v3.2, an Ada-C interprocess communication support utility and Arpc v402.3, an extension to Sun RPC/XDR 4.0, both developed by the Department of Computer Science, University of Colorado, Boulder. You must install Arpc and Q before installing Chiron.
1.4 24 Sep 93 Release to ASSET 1.4 12 Feb 94 Initial release to the PAL
This prologue must be included in all copies of this software. Restrictions on use or distribution: NONE
This software and its documentation are provided "AS IS" and without any expressed or implied warranties whatsoever. No warranties as to performance, merchantability, or fitness for a particular purpose exist. The user is advised to test the software thoroughly before relying on it. The user must assume the entire risk and liability of using this software. In no event shall any person or organization of people be held responsible for any direct, indirect, consequential or inconsequential damages or lost profits.
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