Abstract

Using icons as handles to objects allows for a new simple design paradigm for user interfaces. The key is a concept that inherits icons from graphical user interfaces and the interpretation of sequential text from traditional text interfaces. The basic tool is the object oriented text model. It is shown what power lies in the introduction of icons into text as well as how icons can be used in a better way, if being seen in some context. An implementation of the concept and some application examples are described. Introduction The world of user interfaces splits into two paradigms: Text based and graphical user interfaces. It is a tradition to consider these two paradigms as completely different. But, modern text editing systems have already proven that this is not true. At least, text systems based on text attributed with fonts, size, color etc. and supporting a pointing device like a mouse for input, have many aspects of a graphical user interface. Still, the basic data structure is ...

Citations