Composing Integrated Systems Using GUI-Based Applications And Web Services

Integrated systems are composed of components that exchange information (i.e., interoperate). These components include graphical user interface (GUI) applications (GAPs) and web services. It is difficult to make GAPs interoperate, especially if they are closed and monolithic. Unlike GAPs, web services are applications that are designed to interoperate over the Internet. We propose a novel generic approach for creating integrated systems by composing GAPs with each other and web services efficiently and non-invasively. This approach combines a nonstandard use of accessibility technologies for accessing and controlling GAPs in a uniform way with a visualization mechanism that enables nonprogrammers to compose integrated systems by performing point-and-click, drag-and-drop operations on GAPs and web services. We built a tool based on our approach, and using this tool we created an integrated application that controls two closed and monolithic commercial GAPs and third-party web services. Our evaluation suggests that our approach is effective, and it can be used to create nontrivial integrated systems by composing GAPs with each other and web services.