Abstract: A system for providing a simple, easy to learn and flexible means of creating user interfaces to products under development without the need of a programming language or the need to learn a large set of complicated commands. The Visual Software Engineering ("VSE") system of the invention uses a simple concept of defining both input to and output from graphical objects in an object-oriented system by providing examples of what the user desires the graphical object to do. This technique is referred to herein as "animation by example". In accordance with this process, the user creates a user interface by drawing the user interface with a graphics editor and then defining the output behavior (i.e., graphics manipulation) of the user interface components by showing each state or frame as an animation. This is accomplished by changing the object using a graphic editor function such as move or rotate and storing each of the frames with the object as a behavior state.

Abstract: Disclosed is a schematic capture and design verification system wherein the graphic symbol linked to a component is separated from the model used to simulate the component. Each component has a graphics symbol linked to a link or scion page. The link page also contains a list of all models that can be used with the component. The system allows a model to be selected for each component in a schematic, and allows the model to be changed at any time. The system also allows the models for all components to be changed with a single command. The user enters a schematic into the system, then selects a model for each component used in the schematic. After a model has been selected for each component, the user requests the system to build a netlist that describes the schematic to a simulator or other analysis or synthesis tool. In building the netlist, parameters are extracted from the link page for each component and included in the netlist to be used by the simulator.