
COMPOSER(help)               Khoros                COMPOSER(help)

     COMPOSER -- Description of Khoros

     GENERAL DESCRIPTION

     The Khoros system integrates multiple user interface modes,
     code generators, instructional aids, information processing,
     and data visualization to produce a comprehensive
     image/information processing research tool.  This system can
     easily be tailored to other application domains because the
     tools of the system can modify themselves as well as the
     system.  This attribute is important in a system that is
     designed to be extensible and portable.

     The Khoros infrastructure consists of several layers of
     interacting subsystems.  A high-level user interface specif-
     ication (UIS) combined with methods of software development,
     embedded in a code generation tool set, qualify as a user
     interface development system (UIDS).  An interoperable data
     exchange format and algorithm library contain the applica-
     tion specific layer.  One of the most powerful features of
     the system is its high-level, abstract visual language, can-
     tata.  These basic facilities have been used to build a set
     of applications for performing image/signal processing
     research, algorithm development, and data visualization.

     DOCUMENTATION

     There are several sources of documentation in Khoros. On-
     line documentation is provided via the HELP button that is
     provided within any of the applications with a graphical
     user interfaces.  If you wish to print any of this text, you
     will find it in $KHOROS_HOME/doc/program_name but it is also
     available in manual form (see below).

     Unix style man documentation is available via the vman com-
     mand.  vman provides command searching capabilities with the
     -k option and printing capabilities with the -p option.

     User and application programmer documentation is available
     in the $KHOROS_HOME/manual directory.  Here you will find
     Volume 1, Khoros User's Manual and Volume II, Khoros
     Programmer's Manual,  documentation on the major X Windows
     applications, the UIS and PS file formats, the VIFF data
     structure, configuration management of the system, ghost-
     writer, conductor, preview, composer, and writing new pro-
     grams in the Khoros environment.

     SOFTWARE ARCHITECTURE

     The software development environment revolves around a User
     Interface Specification (UIS) that is used by interpreters
     and code generators to create three user interfaces: a com-
     mand line user interface supported by the vgparm library, a
     graphical user interface (GUI) supported by the xvforms
     library, and a visual language user interface, cantata.  The
     rough diagram below describes the inter-relationships
     between various components of the system.

                   +------------------------------+
                   |   preview(1) or composer(1)  |
                   +------------------------------+
                                  |
                                  |
                             +---------+
                             |+-------+|
                             ||  UIS  ||
                             |+-------+|        +------+
                             +---------+        |  PS  |
                            |     |     |       +------+
                            |     |     |          |
      +--------------------+      |      +-------------------+
      |    conductor(1)    |      |      |   ghostwriter(1)  |
      +--------------------+      |      +-------------------+
                |                 |                |
                |                 |                |
      +--------------------+      |      +--------------------+
      |   X Applications   |      |      | library (intro(1)) |
      +--------------------+      |      +--------------------+
                   |              |               |
                   |              |               |
                   +------------------------------+
                   |   cantata visual language    |
                   +------------------------------+

     Preview, composer, ghostwriter (ghostcheck and ghostreader)
     and conductor represent specific User Interface Development
     tools within the Khoros software structure.  The library of
     data processing algorithms and the X applications (editim-
     age, xprism2, xprism3) are supported by utility and develop-
     ment libraries (see vman 3). The UIS, along with the
     libraries, acts as input to the Khoros tools which then gen-
     erate programs.  These programs include many of the Khoros
     tools themselves, in addition to programs created by appli-
     cation developers using the Khoros system.  All applications
     developed using Khoros may be referenced from within can-
     tata, the visual language programming environment.

     Because of the breadth of Khoros, a description of those who
     work with the system may be helpful.  While these are
     presented as if they are separate individuals, in reality,
     many users find themselves working across several levels of
     the system. Application developers (working from top to bot-
     tom in the Figure above) use the various tools provided by
     the Khoros environment to extend the capabilities of the
     system, add new routines to be accessed by the visual
     language, or create interactive graphical applications.  End
     users of the applications (shown at the bottom of the Fig-
     ure) may use the visual language to program solutions to
     image processing problems.

     Copyright 1992, University of New Mexico. All rights
     reserved.

Khoros                    Release: 1.0                          1

