UI traces: Supporting the maintenance of interactive software

Author

Sutherland, Andrew ; Schneider, Kevin

Author_Institution

Dept. of Comput. Sci., Univ. of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon, SK, Canada

fYear

2009

fDate

20-26 Sept. 2009

Firstpage

563

Lastpage

566

Abstract

We propose a method to support the maintenance of interactive software systems with user interface traces, that involves: (1) collecting execution traces of an interactive system, (2) segmenting execution traces into user interface traces according to user interface activity, and (3) mapping the user interface activity to the implementation activity. To support our approach, we developed a tool that uses aspect-oriented programming and load-time weaving to collect user interface traces from an interactive system. The tool allows us to browse the user interface traces and view user interface related data such as: user input, display updates, and thread activity. Using our tool, we demonstrate how developers can orient themselves and identify the slice of code relevant to performing common software maintenance tasks.

Keywords

interactive systems; software maintenance; user interfaces; aspect-oriented programming; display updates; execution trace segmentation; interactive software system maintenance; load-time weaving; thread activity; user input; user interface traces; Application software; Computer displays; Computer interfaces; Computer science; Interactive systems; Mice; Software maintenance; Software systems; User interfaces; Yarn;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Software Maintenance, 2009. ICSM 2009. IEEE International Conference on

Conference_Location

Edmonton, AB

ISSN

1063-6773

Print_ISBN

978-1-4244-4897-5

Electronic_ISBN

1063-6773

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/ICSM.2009.5306389

Filename

5306389