Ralph D. Hill
Steven L. Rohall
Abstract
When people have meetings or discussions, frequently they use conversational props: physical models, drawings, or other concrete representations of information used to enhance the exchange of information. If the participants are geographically separated, it is difficult to make effective use of props since each physical prop can only exist in one place. Computer applications that allow two or more users to simultaneously view and manipulate the same data can be used to augment human-to-human telecommunication. We have built the Rendezvous system is similar to many UIMSs or user interface toolkits in that it is intended to simplify the construction of graphical direct-manipulation interfaces. It goes beyond these systems by adding functionality to support the construction of multiuser applications. Based on experience with several large applications built with the Rendezvous system, we believe that it is useful for building conversational props and other computer-supported cooperative work (CSCW) applications. We present a list of required features of conversational props, some example applications built with the Rendezvous system, and a description of the Rendezvous system.
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Index Terms
- The Rendezvous architecture and language for constructing multiuser applications
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Reviews
William Thomas Hunt
Programming interfaces for geographically distributed meetings and other multiuser applications requires addressing other human issues besides managing the display and reacting to user input. Some of these issues are providing customized and replicated views, allowing for public and private information, and handling floor control. The Rendezvous system is one of the few tools that provides direct support for these issues. After motivating the research by discussing conversational props, such as paper documents and whiteboards, the paper addresses these issues through working applications. The bulk of the paper methodically describes the architecture and object model of Rendezvous. Distinctive features include a centralized architecture that can be distributed; an Abstraction-Link-View (ALV) paradigm; a link-based constraint system that allows multiple constraints on variables and indirect references; and a multiple inheritance object system that allows the composition of new complex objects from simpler components. The paper finishes with a good comparison to similar systems and a fair-minded summary of the positive and difficult aspects of Rendezvous. Although the comparison between the ALV and model-view-controller architectures is excellent, I would like to see a larger discussion on the prototype-instance model. I would also prefer less coverage of the tic-tac-toe example and more of the useful ConversationBoard. This paper is well written, easy to follow, and amply illustrated. I would recommend it highly to anyone planning to build a multiuser application or anyone interested in user interface development environments (user interface management systems).
Dario A. Giuse
Rendezvous is an object-oriented system that supports the construction of multiuser graphical applications in which people at different sites interact with the same set of objects to communicate with other participants. This paper describes the architecture of the Rendezvous system (despite the title, the language itself is not discussed). The paper is roughly divided into three parts. The first part is a good introduction to general concepts in multiuser interaction. It uses a tic-tac-toe example (implemented in Rendezvous) to illustrate the main points. The second part describes the architecture of the system and introduces the key ideas, including the use of a single model with multiple views that can be manipulated independently, and the use of constraints to maintain consistency between model and views. The third part compares the system to other systems and presents some of its specific strengths and weaknesses. The three parts are each well organized, but the transitions are abrupt and the paper feels somewhat like three separate papers. Perhaps my biggest criticism is that the authors try to cover too much material. While the first part is well suited to a general audience, the remainder is extremely specialized and assumes previous knowledge. While experts will recognize that this is an important, well-designed system, less sophisticated readers may get lost in a large number of concepts presented in rapid succession.
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