The Virtual Splitter: Refactoring Web Applications for the Multiscreen Environment

Abstract: Creating web applications for the multiscreen environment is still a challenge. One approach is to transform existing single-screen applications but this has not been done yet automatically or generically. This paper proposes a refactor-ing system. It consists of a generic and extensible mapping phase that automatically analyzes the application content based on a semantic or a visual criterion determined by the author or the user, and prepares it for the splitting process. The system then splits the application and as a result delivers two instrumented applications ready for distribution across devices. During runtime, the system uses a mirroring phase to maintain the functionality of the distributed application and to support a dynamic splitting process. Developed as a Chrome extension, our approach is validated on several web applications, including a YouTube page and a video application from Mozilla.