Towards Real-Time Collaboration in User Interface Mashups

Authors: Alexey Tschudnowsky, Michael Hertel, Martin Gaedke

Introduction

User Interface (UI) Mashups propose methods and techniques, which should enable non-programmers to develop their own widgetbased solutions. At the moment the process of configuring UI mashups is mainly a single-user activity. Adding support for real-time collaboration to the composition tools could make the development process more "social" and, thus, further lower the entry barrier and make users more productive. The paper describes challenges and possible solutions to enable real-time collaboration in UI mashups with particular focus on resolution of conflicts, which can occur as a result of concurrent modifications. Implementation of the proposed mechanisms are demonstrated in the context of an open-source mashup platform Apache Rave.

Architecture