ARINC 661 - Relationship With Other UI Languages

Relationship With Other UI Languages

The concepts used by ARINC 661 are close to those used in User interface markup languages, except that the UI language is binary and not XML based.

Main similarities from other User interface markup languages:

  • The interface definition is not hard-coded in the CDS. Instead, the CDS use a kernel which instantiate the widget tree at initialization, using a predefined widget library
  • The widget list and the structure of the widget tree are similar to what can be found in common Widget toolkits
  • The Look and feel is separated from the definition of the interface

Main differences from other User interface markup languages :

  • The widget library defined in the standard does not really take advantage of its object nature, contrary to other User interface markup languages. For example, there is no notion of inheritance in the standard, although the same properties can be used more than once for several widgets.
  • Some Widget toolkits or User interface markup languages have the ability to lay out widgets automatically in a container (see for example the box model in XUL, or the layouts in Java Swing). Widgets position and size in their container must always be defined exactly in an ARINC 661 definition. However, the supplement 3 of the standard has added a limited sort of "relative" layout capability between widgets (see Layout manager).
  • There is no equivalent of XBL, like what is used in XUL or SVG. There are symbols that can be reused, but they are mainly shapes that cannot have behaviors (apart from defining their position, rotation, and color), or specific bindings.
  • There is no equivalent of Cascading Style Sheets, as they are used in XUL or SVG for example. Instead, the Look and feel of the interface is hard-coded in the ARINC 661 kernel.
  • The standard does not have an equivalent of Javascript, as used in SVG and XUL, so all specific behavior associated with the widgets must be performed by the UAs.
  • The standard has defined specific "Map" widgets which allows to present elements such as Flight plans in CDS.

Read more about this topic:  ARINC 661

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