A Model Driven Development Method for Pen-Based Form Interface Software

Most of the existing pen-based form applications are developed by traditional software development methods. Whether they are structured development method, rapid prototyping or extreme programming, in essence, they emphasize on the documents generated in each development phase. The documents are independent each other, so they tend to provide the software with the user needs inconsistent with the system implementation model. The methods also need a long life cycle and high cost, and it is difficult for them to adapt to requirement changes. Furthermore, the pen-based interface software with the characteristics of intelligence and ambiguity is very sophisticated. To address the problems above, a model driven development method for pen-based form interface software is presented. Firstly, a pen-based form user interface model is proposed. Secondly, the development framework for pen-based interface software is presented, and its development model is described, with the structures of the models and their relationship introduced in details. Finally, the modeling methods and the automatic generation methods of system for pen-based interface software are brought forward based on the framework. An example is described and evaluated by experiments. The results demonstrate that the method can help end users develop the pen-based form interface software.