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M. Liébana, M. Marquina and R. Ramos CN/DCI
It is well known that the classical UNIX approach to user interactivity is not particularly user friendly: command syntax is too compact, the operating system itself is terse and there is a special jargon used in the system documentation which makes it quite difficult for novice users.
The ADAM Project was born when we realized that a non-negligable fraction of our VM user community at CERN was composed of non-specialists who would consider it non-trivial to migrate to an operating system with fewer apparent advantages. We started by evaluating window managers and equivalent User Interfaces available elsewhere (notably on Mac and PC platforms), and came to realize that an adequate iconic GUI was still missing in the UNIX arena.
Our first target became then the design of an Application Manager which would provide access to our current application offering (mail agents, news readers, editors, WWW browsers, etc.) in an intuitive way. This interface would both save the novice user from the cumbersome syntactic details of executing a typical UNIX program and allow system administrators to deliver transparently their Software Environment to their customers.
The main computer manufacturers are already pursuing a similar goal by
promoting CDE
(see
article 
). It is
being developed under the Common Open Software Environment (COSE)
process. However, CDE has several disadvantages:
Missing functionality in ADAM includes among others: window, file and workspace management. Part of this may however be obtained by using other applications. For instance, workspace management may be provided by the underlying Window Manager.
ADAM is clearly inspired by the user interfaces offered by PC and Macintosh desktops in which applications and groups of applications are represented by icons and make use of the Drag & Drop paradigm. ADAM has been developed in [incr Tcl] (object oriented extension to Tcl/Tk ) and is based on several basic concepts: starter and tray items, ADAM tools and references.
A starter is an application launcher represented by an icon with its name underneath. A tray is a group of starters and possibly other trays. It is represented by a shadowed icon with its name below. Both are available to users in two modes: Read-Write and Read-Only. In the latter case (noticeable because of names shown in italics), items may be viewed and executed but not modified.
The user may create his/her own items through intuitive dialogues. Starters may be set to prompt for parameters when executed. For instance, a starter for printing could prompt for a file name (through a File Selector dialog) and the printer to be used (providing a list of recommended ones).
An ADAM Tool is a special starter that performs actions upon other items. They are activated through Drag & Drop actions. An example of such tool is the Shredder which is used to destroy items from ADAM. The user may drop items into the Shredder and later destroy or recover them.
Drag & Drop may be used not only to interact with ADAM tools but also to perform other intuitive operations such as moving items from one tray to another, printing files (by dropping them into the print icon) or creating references (see below).
A reference is a special starter whose definition is not maintained by the user owning it. In other words, when a reference appears in a user tray, its real definition is taken from another place. References allow owners to maintain control over their starters and, at the same time, give users the freedom to arrange their environment to suit their needs. Users may still change locally some properties (such as window sizes, colours, fonts, etc), and take the critical ones (icon, command, parameters) from the original starter.
A reference is created each time the user drags a Read-Only starter and drops it into a local tray. From then on it behaves the same way as any other starter but with the advantage of automatic propagation of any change made to the original one.
To execute ADAM issue ``adam &'' on your command line and follow the instructions that will be displayed. The first time that ADAM is executed it asks the user for confirmation to create the ADAM environment. Click on the ``Yes'' button and after a while your tray will appear on the screen.
Access to a whole set of applications is provided through the More Trays... tray. By double-clicking on it you will be able to access more applications.
Figure: Accessing UNIX from PC through ADAM.
All ADAM documentation can be reached at the The ADAM Project Home Web Page :
http://wwwinfo.cern.ch/umtf/adam/
We would like to call your attention also to the ADAM User's Manual (http://consult.cern.ch/writeup/adam/) which provides basic guidance to beginners.
ADAM is still a living project. It was presented in CHEP'95 and a new release is planned for the beginning of next year. The ADAM 1.3: User Requirements Document is available for feedback, accessible from our WWW pages.
A short tutorial devoted to ADAM will be scheduled within the framework of the UMTF Computing Tutorials. In case of problems, questions or information do not hesitate to contact ADAM.Support@cern.ch.