Chapter 6: Building User Interfaces

Chapter 6

Software developers have struggled with creating User Interfaces (UIs) since the birth of the computer, and these interfaces have constantly evolved, even when the tasks they perform have remained the same. A noticeable example can be seen in the progression of Microsoft's operating systems. From MS-DOS to Windows 3 to Windows XP, Microsoft has improved the usability of its most current operating system, so the task of installing, managing, and launching applications are easier than ever.

Similarly, other UIs for desktop and enterprise applications have changed over time. Advances in computing such as faster computers and graphics hardware now enable developers to build graphic-rich applications. The Microsoft Foundation Classes (MFC) armed application developers with a suite of standard, yet powerful UI components. By using these tools, developers can easily include such features as drag-and-drop, cut-and-paste, multimedia, and event-driven logic.

A current interface topic concerns Web browsers. The popularity of the Internet and the Web have made the Web browser ubiquitous. First-generation Web browsers were meant for viewing content, not building application UIs. The browser, however, was forced to adapt as the Internet grew into a forum for thousands of distributed applications. Developers struggled to create browser-based UIs that were functional at best. Today developers can build browser-based, thin-client applications that are nearly as rich as their thicker cousins.

This chapter will discuss how developers can leverage XML to help them with UI layout, navigation, and input controls. We will explore ways to use XML to create a layer of abstraction on top of traditional UI elements, making them more dynamic and extensible. Finally we will put these ideas to us, in actual code samples.