VIPspace - A Visually Programmable Shared Workspace

With the wide availability of network supporting hard-and software cooperative computer-based environments became extremely popular. A wide range of CSCW (Computer Supported Cooperative Work) tools with video conferencing, electronic mail, shared whiteboards, discussion forums, and shared information systems are already part of daily business. In contrast to the unstructured linear stream of information in electronic mails shared workspaces provide structured administration of electronic information like documents, voice, pictures, and movies. Popular examples of shared workspaces are BSCW (Basic Support for Cooperative Work), Hypernews, Lotus Notes, Alta Vista Forum, Lifelink, Microsoft Exchange and Webshare. Currently, all these systems are not flexible enough to get easily customized to the requirements of the individual application and user only supporting a limited set of predefined different views and functionality. This article introduces VIPspace (Visually Programmable Workspace). VIPspace can be easily customized to the individual needs of an user through VIPrule, a combination of a form- and icon-based visual programming language. VIPrule is based on an easy-to-use drag and drop paradigm. Direct manipulation via drag and drop allows easy access to local file systems as well as manipulation, exchange, and publication of shared multimedia documents. As VIPspace is implemented in Java it nicely integrates with other web-applications and provides a platform independent environment with a uniform graphical user interface.