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The development of user interfaces (UIs) is one of the most timeconsuming aspects in software development. In this context, the lack of proper reuse mechanisms for UIs is increasingly becoming manifest, especially as software development is more and more moving toward composite applications. In this paper we propose a framework for the integration of stand-alone modules or applications, where integration occurs at the presentation layer. Hence, the final goal is to reduce the effort required for UI development by maximizing reuse.The design of the framework is inspired by lessons learned from application integration, appropriately modified to account for the specificity of the UI integration problem. We provide an abstract component model to specify characteristics and behaviors of presentation components and propose an event-based composition model to specify the composition logic. Components and composition are described by means of a simple XML-based language, which is interpreted by a runtime middleware for the execution of the resulting composite application. A proof-ofconcept prototype allows us to show that the proposed component model can also easily be applied to existing presentation components, built with different languages and/or component technologies.

Context-aware, multi-channel Web applications are more and more gaining consensus among both content providers and consumers, but very few proposals exist for their conceptual modeling. This article illustrates a conceptual framework that provides modeling facilities for context-aware, multichannel Web applications; it also shows how high-level modeling constructs can drive the application development process through automatic code generation. Our work stresses the importance of user-independent, context-triggered adaptation actions, in which the context plays the role of a “first class” actor , operating independently of users on the same hypertext the users navigate. Modeling concepts are based on WebML (Web Modeling Language), an already established conceptual model for data-intensive Web applications, which is also accompanied by a development method and a CASE tool. However, given their general validity, the concepts of this article shape up a complete framework that can be adopted independently of the chosen model, method, and tool.

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Web mashups are a new generation of applications based on the "composition" of ready-to-use services. In different contexts, ranging from the consumer Web to Enterprise systems, the potential of this new technology is to make users evolve from passive receivers of applications to actors actively involved in the "creation of innovation". Enabling end users to self-define applications that satisfy their situational needs is emerging as an important new requirement. In this paper, we address the current lack of lightweight development processes and environments and discuss models, methods, and technologies that can make mashups a technology for end user development.