DireWolf - Distributing and Migrating User Interfaces for Widget-based Web Applications

Lehrstuhl Informatik 5

(Information Systems)

Prof. Dr. M. Jarke

I5-KRNK-0713-1 This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.

DireWolf:

Distributing and Migrating User Interfaces

for Widget-based Web Applications

Dejan Kovachev, Dominik Renzel,

Petru Nicolaescu & Ralf Klamma

RWTH Aachen University

Advanced Community Information Systems (ACIS)

{lastname}@dbis.rwth-aachen.de

Lehrstuhl Informatik 5

(Information Systems)

Prof. Dr. M. Jarke

I5-KRNK-0713-2

Responsive Open

Community Information

Systems

Community Visualization

and Simulation

Community Analytics

Community Support

Web

An

alytics

Web

En

gin

eeri

ng

Advanced Community

Information Systems (ACIS)

Requirements

Engineering

Lehrstuhl Informatik 5

(Information Systems)

Prof. Dr. M. Jarke

I5-KRNK-0713-3

Agenda

Introduction

Related work

Requirements analysis

System design and implementation

Evaluation

Conclusions and outlook

Lehrstuhl Informatik 5

(Information Systems)

Prof. Dr. M. Jarke

I5-KRNK-0713-4

Motivation

Sin

gle-

devi

ce U

I M

ulti-

devi

ce d

istr

ibut

ed U

I

Smartphones: on-site video capture, geo-tagging on maps and video

annotation Laptops and PCs:

text editing

Tablets: video players with

multi-touch interaction

Limited space and interaction

possibilities

Lack of tools & methodologies for Web-based

DUIs

Trend to using multiple personal devices

Lehrstuhl Informatik 5

(Information Systems)

Prof. Dr. M. Jarke

I5-KRNK-0713-5

Key Contributions

Framework for distributing widget-based Web interfaces on a federation of multiple managed devices

Support for extended multi-modal real-time interactions

Portable continuous state-consistent and adaptive session migration

Implementation for modern (mobile) Web browsers

DireWolf - Distributing and Migrating User Interfaces for

Widget-based Web Applications

Lehrstuhl Informatik 5

(Information Systems)

Prof. Dr. M. Jarke

I5-KRNK-0713-6

Related Work

Pebles

[Myers 01]

HTTP DUI

[Vanderp

elven ’05]

P2P DUIs

[Melchoir

‘09]

Roam

[Chu ‘04]

MarcoFlow

[Daniel ‘10] DireWolf

App. Type desktop Web desktop desktop Web Web

DUI def. fixed schema user N/A fixed user/fixed

Control central central all peers all peers central all peers

Distr. time app. start run time run time run time deployment run time

Adaptive -- ++ ++ + + ++

Continuity - N/A - ++ N/A ++

Co-work + + - - - ++ ++

User mgt. N/A N/A N/A N/A + +

Device mgt. + N/A N/A N/A N/A ++

App. State + + N/A + ++ ++

Lehrstuhl Informatik 5

(Information Systems)

Prof. Dr. M. Jarke

I5-KRNK-0713-7

Distributing UI in

Widget-based Web Applications

Widget – reusable minimal

service interfaces

Widget space – container for widget

orchestration, collaboration,

customization

Widget-based application

Typical single-device widget Web application

DUI widget

Web

application

with DireWolf

Lehrstuhl Informatik 5

(Information Systems)

Prof. Dr. M. Jarke

I5-KRNK-0713-8

Migration Requirements

Migration of app. components across devices

Cooperation between app. components

Management of

– device ownership

– device features

and availability

– app. state

– widget state

Lehrstuhl Informatik 5

(Information Systems)

Prof. Dr. M. Jarke

I5-KRNK-0713-9

Prototype

Web application (composed of widgets)

Widget (collaborative web

component)

EU FP7 ROLE Project

http://role-sandbox.eu/ Space (shared by multiple users)

Lehrstuhl Informatik 5

(Information Systems)

Prof. Dr. M. Jarke

I5-KRNK-0713-10

Implementation Specifics

Extension of ROLE SDK – an open source widget container based on

Apache Shindig

– User management extension

– Personal and collaborative widget space management

– Secure authentication and authorization with OpenID and OAuth

– XMPP-based multi-user chat

Inter-widget communication (IWC)

Lehrstuhl Informatik 5

(Information Systems)

Prof. Dr. M. Jarke

I5-KRNK-0713-11

widget active

initiate migration

DUI responder

DUI manager the target

init migration

change widget

location

DUI manager the source

init migration

change widget location

perform migration perform migration

DUI client DUI client

prepare migration

states

is DUI widget

collect state

set widget state

DUI migration display widget

update meta-UI

connect to DUI

record

widget state

app. state

finish migration

finish migration

prepare removal

on removal

done

remove widget update meta-UI

Initiate migration

Save widget state

Update widget state

Create/remove widget

Change widget location

Widget

Migration

Lehrstuhl Informatik 5

(Information Systems)

Prof. Dr. M. Jarke

I5-KRNK-0713-12

Evaluation

Migration of widgets across

various devices

– In a WLAN network

– Desktop ↔ iPad

– Simple migration M:362ms; SD:48.9ms

– Continuous migration M:1305ms; SD:222.6ms

– Widget-rendering takes more time

than migration

Limitations

– Widget-based Web applications are

less common

– Dependency on a central server

Lehrstuhl Informatik 5

(Information Systems)

Prof. Dr. M. Jarke

I5-KRNK-0713-13

Conclusions and Outlook

DireWolf – a framework to facilitate user interactions on a federation of

multiple managed devices

Widget-based approach to encapsulate UI and

application functionalities

Distribution and migration of widgets with little overhead

Future work

Use WebRTC for browser to browser communication

Support and evaluate multi-device multi-user collaboration

Integrate DireWolf within a larger open-source project, e.g. Apache

Rave (ROLE IWC already under review)

Further elaborate DireWolf in the EU FP7 Learning Layers Project