Introduction
Over the past seven years, SK8 has been used by Apple and others to create a wide array of applications. These applications have been used for both educational and business purposes. SK8 is in many ways a "Meta-Tool." That is, it is a tool to build tools. As suchc SK8 has been used to build special purpose tools for specific domains. These tools then output a particular file to be used by a specific runtime. For instance, there are tools which output to HTML or AppleGuide or Java.

SK8 is also an integral part of the work done on authoring tools and education as part of the East/West Consortium funded by ARPA. See the press release for more details.

Below are a sampling of the projects built on SK8 within Apple. For more details on the work done using SK8 as part of the consortium, visit the Task Force Description Pages.

Mystic8er: SK8 Output to ScriptX, HC, AMT & Newton
Mystic8er illustrates SK8's ability to create tools for authoring applications that can be delivered on multiple platforms, including small devices. Mystic8er is a construction kit for authoring applications that provide answers to questions that a user might pose. An author can use Mystic8er to directly manipulate the elements of a Mystic 8 Ball application, such as the graphic layout, the responses to questions, the number of responses per field, and the text for each button. After viewing the application in a number of different simulated user interfaces, the author may select Export from the File menu, and an AppleEvent is sent to HyperCard, creating a working Mystic 8 stack. Or, the user may export to Newton, and automatically create a file that the Newton Toolkit can compile and download to a Newton MessagePad. Mystic8er can produce ScriptX and Apple Media Tool applications for cross-platform delivery. This work is a proof of concept.

StateDraw
StateDraw is an example of the kind of user extensible title that can be rapidly built using SK8 (StateDraw was built in about a week by one person). Using StateDraw, a user can easily build, customize, and extend applications based on a state-machine architecture (also referred to as a "card-and-stack" or "event-based" metaphor). StateDraw contains a number of features that make it easy to use, including: (1) separate user, state authoring, and state machine authoring views of an application; (2) creation-replay stories that explain to users how parts of the title were built using StateDraw; and (3) visible transients of recorded usage traces that make it easy for users to manipulate fleeting events and objects, such as a sound playing, and then use direct manipulation to reuse that object somewhere else in the title. This work illustrates SK8 as a meta-tool, or a tool for building derivative tools that are task specific and easy for non-programmers to use. StateDraw outputs to ScriptX and Java.

Music and Video Store
VideoStore is an example of a of multimedia application that developers can rapidly build using SK8. VideoStore allows a user to go on a simulated shopping trip to a music and video store. The shopper can play sample sections of a CD or video by dropping it in to the player, get information about the CD or video by double-clicking its box, and choose to purchase the video by placing the video into a basket that tabulates a cumulative bill for the shopper. VideoStore was built in one week by a single SK8 scriptor. VideoStore illustrates the power of SK8 as a rapid prototyping tool for quickly "sketching" new multimedia applications.

Circuit Simulator
The Circuit Simulator is an application that allows a user to rapidly build an electronic circuit from a palette of components and then perform a simulation of that circuit. The Circuit Simulator illustrates the power of SK8 as a rapid prototyping tool for simulation applications.

Gravitas
Gravitas is an educational application, built by a visiting scholar Royston Sellman, that allows students to learn about gravity by building simulations of masses in orbit about each other. For example, students can build models of the earth orbiting the sun, and the moon orbiting the earth. The Gravitas interface allows students to rapidly build simulations, adjust initial values of mass, velocity, etc., and then see the results. Gravitas illustrates the power of SK8 as a rapid prototyping tool for simulation applications.

MrFixit/Piaget
In conjunction with Boeing, a device authoring and simulation tool, a troubleshooting expert system and decision tree authoring tool, as well as a component authoring tool were developed.

Total Recall
Total Recall is a prototype for a team memory and task management tool being developed by Apple University. It is intended for use by small workgroups with multiple projects to coordinate. Project files reside on individual users' machines and are shared over the network. Document pointers, task data, and manager / user data are kept in the project files and can be displayed in alternative, coordinated views. Projects can be hierarchically related to one another.

"We chose SK8 for our prototype to take advantage of how quickly and freely we could iterate interface designs and add new features as desired. We are also looking forward to SK8's capabilities to output script for portable devices."

Apple Researcher Mike Graves and Alan Peterson worked on the Total Recall prototype. Alan is a nomadic SK8 expert user seen and read about in the development community.

Role'm
In conjunction with Apple Training, a role play sales simulator was developed. Users could interact with a simulated person via a restricted natural language interface. The user would interview the simulated customer, and the customer would generate answers from a knowledge base about a company and then splice together video to produce the response that the user would see.

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