Tasklets: enabling end user programming of web widgets. (1st January 2013)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Manjunath, Geetha; Murty, M. Narasimha; Sitaram, Dinkar
• Is Part Of: International journal of Web engineering and technology. Volume 8:Number 3(2013)
• Page Start: 264
• Page End: 290
• Publication Date: 2013-01-01
• Subjects: programming-by-demonstration -- PBD -- widgets -- Tasklets -- Web Virtual Machine -- WVM -- end user programming -- mobile widgets -- web interaction language; World Wide Web -- Periodicals; Web site development -- Periodicals; Application software -- Development -- Periodicals; 006.7
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1476-1289

Abstract

Mobile widgets are now popular and form a new paradigm of simplified web. Probably, the best experience of the web is when a user has a widget for every frequently executed task, and can execute it anytime, anywhere on any device. However, creating a widget today requires knowledge of programming, web technologies and protocols. In this paper, we propose a new method of web simplification that enables an end-user to create simple 'single-click' widgets for a personal task – without any programming. For this, we introduce a new concept called Tasklet to represent a user's personal interaction and model it using an instruction set over websites. These Tasklets can be programmed by demonstration and are executed using a Web Virtual Machine that virtualises changes to web pages. We believe our approach opens up a different perspective of WWW as not just 'web of pages' but 'web of tasks'.