MIDL:

A Menu Interface Design Language:

Preliminary Concept Proposals

by

Geoffrey G. Roy

&

Janet Jackson

Abstract

MIDL is a specification language for the design and implementation of menu systems for application software. It is targeted at application programs which are command line driven and whose command line interface can be retained to complement the menu interface. MIDL provides a means of specifying the structure of the menu interface. The appearance of the interface will depend on the implementation environment. It will be controlled by a presentation manager. This will be the only system-dependent part of MIDL. Where appropriate, presentation managers will use existing windowing toolboxes.

MIDL provides a number of extensions to commonly available menu design strategies, in particular the use of rules to define the behaviour of the menu interface under varying conditions.