A Visual Approach to Internet Applications Development

ock corresponds to a Tcl command (or procedure): such a command may itself invoke the execution of other programs as subprocesses. 2 VIPERS elementary modules have a square shape and present connection points, or ports, on their lateral sides; programs are assembled through direct manipulation, by positioning and properly connecting the available modules: entire programs can therefore be built without typing any line of code. 3 The Visual Approach Figure 1 shows an example of a visual program built through VIPERS. Its purpose is to explore the Web to find a set of E-mail addresses (to which a message will be sent later on), starting from one or more words and/or sentences. To avoid sending messages to persons out of target, the program also generates a form, to be filled in by the user. For each address, this form shows its context (the ten words preceding it and the ten words following it) and a check box, used to select or exclude the address. The form is subsequently processed

A Visual Approach to Internet Applications Development

We propose a data-flow visual environment in which non-naive users can accomplish their goals better and more rapidly by directly composing simple visual programs themselves, while preserving a sense of control over the system