UI Procedures
When Iotellect Server wants to talk to a human user, it can pop up a message, show a data table, or possibly show a list with checkboxes to let the user select one or several options. When you think about it, just a handful of interaction types are enough to fully interact with a user. There's no need to pop up a special, custom dialog whenever the user has to interact with the software.
Standardizing user interaction in this way lets a user quickly gain familiarity with the system. The learning curve is less steep, because you only have to figure out the data shown in the dialog - not the dialog itself.
User Interface Procedures (UI Procedures) are the basic building blocks of actions. These UI Procedures are used for showing alerts, confirming actions, editing properties, etc. Every action is a combination of server-side operations and UI Procedures. Depending on action logic and the runtime environment, an action may invoke UI Procedures in various combinations. For example, the Call Function Action lets a user edit the input parameters of a called function using an Edit Data UI Procedure, then calls the function, and then decides what UI Procedure will be started: Show Error if function execution has been failed, Edit Data in read-only mode if function has returned some output or just Show Message to indicate that function has been successfully executed.
Another key advantage of using UI Procedures comes to light when considering Iotellect as a multi-platform system. When using a web interface or a desktop client to interact with the Iotellect system, obviously the actual UI controls shown to the user are somewhat different. However, the UI controls always derive from the same UI procedures. I.e, even on a smartphone, you will have some way to show an error message, or allow a user to perform a multiple-selection. Here too, this reduces the learning curve and improves consistency.
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