A Manifest for Application Generators: Helping Developers with the Serenoa Framework.

The Serenoa framework proposes an open platform for developing context-aware application Service Front-Ends. It is based on a set of languages to define user interfaces (UIs) in an abstract manner and rules to guide application adaptation. After these languages, various software modules (Runtime UI Generation Engine sub-modules) may transform the abstract application definition to final user interfaces to be rendered by actual devices for end-users to interact with it. As each of the available RUIGE submodules may be dedicated to the generation for specific application domains, support different types and technologies of adaptation and target different software platforms, we consider that a mechanism to help Serenoa developers to decide which sub-modules best suits their needs. The proposed mechanism is a manifest file to be provided by the developer of a specific RUIGE submodule, which must describe the application domains that it covers, the interaction modalities supported, the hardware and software platforms targeted, the adaptation types considered (and which resources are adapted and to what other type of resource they are transformed) and any other piece of relevant information for developers to guess how good each RUIGE sub-module is for them. Additionally, a search engine (RUIGE Assistant for developers) is suggested for developers to have an entry point and, thus, be able to specify requirements and obtain a list of RUIGE sub-modules to cover their needs. Author