The Lapidary Graphical Interface Design Tool
Brad Vander Zanden and Brad A. Myers

The Lapidary interface design tool allows the graphics and
run-time behaviors that go inside an application window, as well
as the graphics and behaviors that go around the application
window, such as menus and scroll bars, to be specified
pictorially. In particular, Lapidary allows the designer to draw
pictures of application-specific graphical objects that the end
user will manipulate (such as boxes and arrows, or elements of a
list), the feedback that shows which objects are selected (such
as small boxes on the sides and corners of an object), and the
dynamic feedback objects (such as hair-line boxes to show where
an object is being dragged). The run-time behavior of all these
objects can be specified in a straightforward way using
constraints and dialog boxes that allow the designer to provide
abstract descriptions of the interactive response to the input
devices. Lapidary also generalizes from the specific example
pictures to allow the graphics and behaviors to be specified by
demonstration.  Finally, Lapidary supports the construction and
use of ``widgets'' (sometimes called interaction techniques or
gadgets) such as menus, scroll bars, buttons and icons. Thus
Lapidary allows all pictorial aspects of an application to be
specified graphically.