Research Article
API Design Recommendations for Facilitating Conversion of Single-user Applications into Collaborative Applications
@INPROCEEDINGS{10.1109/COLCOM.2007.4553849, author={Kai Lin and David Chen and Geoff Dromey and Steven Xia and Chengzheng Sun}, title={API Design Recommendations for Facilitating Conversion of Single-user Applications into Collaborative Applications}, proceedings={3rd International ICST Conference on Collaborative Computing: Networking, Applications and Worksharin}, publisher={IEEE}, proceedings_a={COLLABORATECOM}, year={2008}, month={6}, keywords={API recommendations collaborative system design operational transformation}, doi={10.1109/COLCOM.2007.4553849} }- Kai Lin
David Chen
Geoff Dromey
Steven Xia
Chengzheng Sun
Year: 2008
API Design Recommendations for Facilitating Conversion of Single-user Applications into Collaborative Applications
COLLABORATECOM
IEEE
DOI: 10.1109/COLCOM.2007.4553849
Abstract
Recent advancements in collaboration technology have shown that it is possible to convert existing single-user applications into real-time collaborative applications without modifying the source codes of the single-user applications. Such conversion relies on the API (Application Programming Interface) provided by the single-user applications. Poorly designed APIs make such conversion difficult, inefficient, or even impossible. Until now, it is not well understood what features APIs should provide to facilitate conversion of single-user applications into collaborative applications. This paper presents recommendations of the features single-user application APIs should provide to facilitate conversion. The results are based on what we have learnt from converting Microsoft Visio, into real-time collaborative Visio (CoVisio), and our previous experience in building CoWord and CoPowerPoint.
