Design of VY: A Mini Visual IDE for the Development of GUI in Embedded Devices

Abstract

Graphical user interface (GUI) for applications of embedded devices (ED) has been increasingly in demand. Rapid GUI development tools are being required more than ever. However, traditional way of GUI development for ED applications has some limitation in support of visual environment and blocks rapid development. In this paper, we introduce a new mini visual IDE, called VY, which supports rapid development utilizing control library, and simulation of GUI. VY can realize the development of GUI in ED efficiently by means of "what you see is what you get"(WYSIWYG). It consists of five modules: simulator, control library, script complier, script virtual machine (SVM) and visual window. By utilizing the hardware-independent control library of graphical interfaces, an attractive GUI can be produced with much less script effort on the visual window. Then, the script file is compiled into script data (including instructions) which will be executed by the SVM with visiting system calls in ED, and the Simulator will display the resulting GUI. After all these steps, the final GUI can be downloaded into the ED system. In this way, VY supports rapid development of hardware-independent GUI for ED applications on a visual metaphor.