Documents as User Interfaces. More Cedar/Tioga/Gargoyle goodness. Here, documents are extended to serve as user interfaces. These ideas also inspire ’s Clerk project, though we haven’t quite caught up to 1991 yet.
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Template-based syntax-directed structure editor. Tolerates programs with errors to avoid breaking user's flow. Code in database, projectional views, good debugger. Pascal and “a teaching language called Karel the Robot”. 1991.
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GENIE’s lead author also co-authored this very nice paper on selection semantics in structure editors. 1988.
dl.acm.org/doi/pdf/10.114
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Rapid Controlled Movement Through Virtual 3D Workspaces. Logarithmic movement in 3D space to improve UX. Still used today. Anyone working on a ZUI should pay attention to the section on “point of interest movement”. 1991.
/cc @softspaceninja
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JANUS. An integrated design environment for constructive and argumentative design. Architect’s helper. “Critics” supply pros/cons for design choices, plus backup library of examples and design principles. Symbolics Lisp machine implementation. 1989/1991.
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Branching histories in a drawing program. Keeps a log of operations, allows the user to rewind, change an operation, and then replay the rest of the stack. 1991.
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Hypersimulation-Based Learning Environment. Japanese learning/simulation environment on a Lisp Machine. Power station sim with multiply bound values in circuit diagrams, algebraic notation, geometric visualization. Parallel world stuff. 1991.
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Information Visualization Using 3D Interactive Animation. Some cute ideas in 3D filesystem manipulation. (And some Jurassic Park "This is Unix!" vibes.) 1991.
/cc @softspaceninja
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Touchscreen system for scheduling the activity of smart house/IoT-style devices in 1991. Mostly interesting for how long it takes ideas to become widely available products.
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I've been trying to get back to the docs as UI model in Newspeak. We had related features, like 'Make the selection a button' in rudimentary form in Strongtalk in 1996, but never the full thing.
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