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# The Design of XF

The development of graphical interfaces becomes more and more important, as more and more graphical oriented computers are used. Many users are still working with traditional commandline tools, and only use the graphical capabilities of their computers to display several command shells. Of course, this may be appropriate for some tasks, and users but using an application with a graphical interface usually improves the user's productivity. Usually graphical interfaces provide a more intuitive access to applications. This is possible by the use of graphical symbols, color, various fonts etc.. This does not mean that graphical interfaces must be totally different from traditional interfaces, but the graphical environment gives more freedom for the design of the application.

The range of applications that are supplied with a graphical interface goes from complex software packages (like word processors) to small interface components (like alert boxes) for ``toy'' applications. The complexity of the graphical environment makes it necessary that developers get some kind of support. First, to allow a fast development of applications, and second to support the design of ``good'' graphical interfaces.

The developer of a complex software package usually needs support for the design of a consistent interface. It is important that the process of the implementation is supported. Changeability of the design, support for product maintenance and project management are important.

On the other hand, the existence of commonly used and well-known traditional applications makes it interesting for the user to create graphical frontends for existing commandline oriented tools. An example for this kind of encapsulation of traditional applications into a graphical frontend is the HP Encapsulator [#Cagan90##1#] and [#Fromme90##1#]. This is a language that can be used to embed existing non graphical applications into a graphical environment. Such an interface must be built easily, and the resulting code must be easy to handle. A programmer implementing such an interface usually does not want to learn how to use complex windowing systems.

- Interface builders
- Existing interface builders
- The XF design

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