Event management refers to the process of controlling and organizing the flow of events within an event system. An event can refer to anything from a user action to a security sensor detecting movement. These events are usually managed by an event control application which can be accessed using a web browser. This article will describe the different types of event and how event management applications can be used to manage these events.
User events are generally classified into two broad categories: user initiated events and computer initiated events. A user event is any computer-initiated action. For instance, a user clicking a button might be considered a user event. On the other hand, an internal event caused by software might be termed a computer event. Both these events can be categorized as user and computer events according to their respective characteristics.
Event resources refer to the various event resources a program needs in order to run. Common event resources include event queues, event streams, event listeners, event focus and detail items. A queue is a temporary storage for a large number of events while an event stream is a repetitive execution of the same event. The details are used for tracking long queues and long streams of events.
Event handlers are one of the main event resources. A handler is a piece of software that receives events and forwards them to their corresponding event resources. Common event handlers include text box captureors and click handlers. Text box captureors allow users to capture the text from a specified place on the form and send it to an event handler. Click handlers receive events in a similar way that a “butterfly” would be clicked.
Event loops are used to implement complex event driven processes. A event loop contains all the information needed to determine when an event occurs. Some event loops are event-driven and work continuously; other event-driven loops are event-paired. An event-paired loop is a series of events that occur at the same time. In this type of event loop the event handler is moved to ensure the next event in an event series occurs.
Apart from event handlers there are also event source tools that are used to send information from an event source to an event handler or to an output device. These event models are event driven and work with an output destination through an interface. Common event source tools include desktop automation tools, web event handlers and data extraction tools.