Recording and Playback of Collaborative Desktops on the Internet

Abstract : This paper presents a Tcl/Tk recording/playback architecture and implementation that records, plays back and executes a Tcl/Tk collaborative internet-based desktop. Specifically, the desktop brings together distributed data, application workflows, and teams into collaborative sessions in which the control of the desktop editing and execution is shared. A typical workflow invokes distributed tools and data to support the design of microelectronic systems. We argue that recording and playback of collaborative user interactions can have a wide-range of applications, such as: keeping minutes' of interactive discussions, clicks of menu-specific commands associated with different tools on the shared desktop, user-entered data and control inputs, user-gueried data outputs, support for automated software documentation, tutorials, collaborative playback of tutorials and solutions recorded earlier, etc. The summary of 540 Internet-based experiments, each relying on RecordTaker and playbackMaker to record, playback, and execute ReubenDesktop configurations from local, cross-state, and cross-country servers, demonstrates the effectiveness of the proposed concepts and implementation.