www.elsevier.com/locate/jvlc Journal of Visual Languages & Computing Journal of Visual Languages and Computing 14 (2003) 47–77 . Teallach — a flexible user-interface development environment for object database applications P.J Barclay a, *, T. Griffiths b , J. McKirdy c , J. Kennedy a , R. Cooper c , N.W. Paton b , P. Gray c a Department of Computing, Napier University, Merchiston Campus, 10 Colinton Road, Edinburgh, EH10 5DT, UK b Department of Computer Science, University of Manchester, Oxford Road, Manchester M13 9PL, UK c Department of Computing Science, University of Glasgow, 17 Lilybank Gardens, Glasgow G12 8QQ, UK Received 2 February 2001; received in revised form 5 April 2002; accepted 30 May 2002 Abstract The Teallach project has adapted model-based user-interface development techniques to the systematic creation of user-interfaces for object-oriented database applications. Model-based approaches aim to provide designers with a more principled approach to user-interface development using a variety of underlying models, and tools which manipulate these models. Here we present the results of the Teallach project, describing the tools developed and the flexible design method supported. Distinctive features of the Teallach system include provision of database-specific constructs, comprehensive facilities for relating the different models, and support for a flexible design method in which models can be constructed and related by designers in different orders and in different ways, to suit their particular design rationales. The system then creates the desired user-interface as an independent, fully functional Java application, with automatically generated help facilities. r 2003 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved. Keywords: Model-based systems; User-interfaces; Data-intensive applications 1. Introduction The importance of providing powerful, appropriate and usable user-interfaces to software applications is well recognized [1]; in particular, the database community *Corresponding author. Bassoe Offshore Consultants, 10 The Enterprise Centre 1, Dryden Road, Loanhead Edinburgh EH20 9LZ, UK Tel.:+44-131-440-2848, fax: +44-131-440-4318. E-mail address: peter@bassoe.com (P.J. Barclay). URL: http://www.dcs.gla.ac.uk/research/teallach/. 1045-926X/03/$-see front matter r 2003 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved. PII:S1045-926X(02)00056-3