JETracer - A Framework for Java GUI Event Tracing

The present paper introduces the open-source Java Event Tracer (JETracer) framework for real-time tracing of GUI events within applications based on the AWT, Swing or SWT graphical toolkits. Our framework provides a common event model for supported toolkits, the possibility of receiving GUI events in real-time, good performance in the case of complex target applications and the possibility of deployment over a network. The present paper provides the rationale for JETracer, presents related research and details its technical implementation. An empirical evaluation where JETracer is used to trace GUI events within five popular, open-source applications is also presented.Comment: Proceedings of ENASE 2015, ISBN: 978-989-758-100-

Live Visualization of GUI Application Code Coverage with GUITracer

The present paper introduces the initial implementation of a software exploration tool targeting graphical user interface (GUI) driven applications. GUITracer facilitates the comprehension of GUI-driven applications by starting from their most conspicuous artefact - the user interface itself. The current implementation of the tool can be used with any Java-based target application that employs one of the AWT, Swing or SWT toolkits. The tool transparently instruments the target application and provides real time information about the GUI events fired. For each event, call relations within the application are displayed at method, class or package level, together with detailed coverage information. The tool facilitates feature location, program comprehension as well as GUI test creation by revealing the link between the application's GUI and its underlying code. As such, GUITracer is intended for software practitioners developing or maintaining GUI-driven applications. We believe our tool to be especially useful for entry-level practitioners as well as students seeking to understand complex GUI-driven software systems. The present paper details the rationale as well as the technical implementation of the tool. As a proof-of-concept implementation, we also discuss further development that can lead to our tool's integration into a software development workflow.Comment: http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/document/7332434

A Systematic Literature Review of Modern Software Visualization

We report on the state-of-the-art of software visualization. To ensure reproducibility, we adopted the Systematic Literature Review methodology. That is, we analyzed 1440 entries from IEEE Xplore and ACM Digital Library databases. We selected 105 relevant full papers published in 2013-2019, which we classified based on the aspect of the software system that is supported (i.e., structure, behavior, and evolution). For each paper, we extracted main dimensions that characterize software visualizations, such as software engineering tasks, roles of users, information visualization techniques, and media used to display visualizations. We provide researchers in the field an overview of the state-of-the-art in software visualization and highlight research opportunities. We also help developers to identify suitable visualizations for their particular context by matching software visualizations to development concerns and concrete details to obtain available visualization tools