Window (computing)

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This article is about the graphical display of the functions of a computer. For other uses, see Window (disambiguation).

An example of a graphical user interface in Windows XP, with the My Music window displayed

In computing, a window is a visual area, usually rectangular in shape, containing some kind of user interface, displaying the output of and allowing input for one of a number of simultaneously running computer processes. Windows are primarily associated with graphical displays, where they can be manipulated with a pointer. The idea was developed as a part of the WIMP paradigm at Xerox PARC.

A graphical user interface (GUI) that uses the window as one of its primary metaphors is called a windowing system. Windows are almost always depicted as two-dimensional objects (like papers or books) arranged on a desktop. Most windows can be resized, moved, hidden, restored, and closed at will. When two overlap, one is on top of the other, with the covered part of the lower window not visible. However, many programs with text user interfaces, for example Emacs, allow their display to be divided into areas which may also be referred to as "windows". The part of a windowing system which manages these operations is called a window manager.

Windows are a feature (or widget) in most graphical user interfaces (especially WIMP ones). DEC Windows (for VMS), X Window System (for GNU & Unix-like systems), Microsoft Windows and IBM's Open Windows are named after this feature.

Many applications in which it is possible to work with more than one file at a time, such as an image-editing program, will put each file in a separate window and will allow the windows to be tiled, so that all of them are visible. There is usually a distinction between the main application window and its child windows, so sometimes a big application like this will force windows to minimize to a location at the bottom of the main window, instead of the operating system's window docking area.

Contents

1 Mac OS X
2 Windows
3 Other window managers

3.1 Window properties

4 Types of windows
5 Focus
6 See also

Mac OS X

In Mac OS X, windows are minimized to the right side of the Dock, using either a 'Genie to its bottle' effect, or a scaling effect. The Exposé feature allows all windows relating to one application to be tiled, or for every window to be tiled across the screen so that it is possible to see them all at once. Maximizing windows variably causes them to take up the full screen, or just to be maximized vertically. Pressing the close button will make the window disappear, but it will not always quit the application. It will usually quit the application if it is a utility or a program that does not generate child windows (for example, iPhoto quits when you press the close button; Safari does not, because it can generate more than one window). There are no borders around the edges of the window (just a drop shadow), so arbitrary resizing can only be performed from the bottom-right corner of each window. Windows can be moved from any part of the interface of that application - not just the title bar.

Windows

In Microsoft Windows, windows are minimized to the taskbar. If more than two windows from the same application are minimized, then Windows XP will group them into one item, and a window can be selected from the pop-up menu. Maximizing windows causes them to take up the whole screen space, except the area taken by the taskbar. Pressing the close button will quit the application, or if more than one application window is open, it will close only that window. There is a thin border around every window in Windows, and this can be used to resize the window. The window can be moved from the title bar.

Other window managers

Unix and Linux based systems do not have a standard windowing system. In most window managers for X11, the appearance and behavior of windows can be precisely specified in preferences or configuration files.

Window properties

Depending on the window manager being used, windows have a wide range of properties that can often be manipulated by the user:

Their size.
Maximized state in the horizontal or vertical axes, or both.
Minimized state (which usually toggles their visibility and stores a link to them in a taskbar, dock or iconbox.
Stickiness. If the window manager supports virtual desktops, this makes the window 'stick' to every desktop.
Shaded state, which 'rolls up' the main part of the window and just keeps the title bar.
The visibility of the toolbars that the window may have.
Transparency (if supported).
Always-on-top state, which stops the window from being obscured, even in part, by any others.
Border - presence and appearance.
Appearance of the title-bar.

It is usually possible to move windows in X11 by holding a modifier key (such as Alt) and dragging any part of the window, as well as using the title-bar. Many window managers also provide features for grouping windows so that they all act as one, and 3D window managers, such as Metisse and Project Looking Glass also allow the three-dimensional properties of a window to be changed (such as their rotation in the Y or Z axes).

Types of windows

Window managers often offer more than one type of window, based on their properties.

Application/Document windows - the normal type of window that contain documents or the application's data
Utility windows, including dashboards - which float on top of all other windows and offer tools or information for the application
Dialog boxes - windows outside of the normal workflow that display information or asks for information from the user
Inspectors - windows that are 'always on top' of other windows in the same application. They are used to show the properties of an item contextually; that is, their contents changes when a new item, in another window, has been selected - for example, showing the properties of the currently selected file, without needing to close and re-open the window.

Focus

Main article: Focus
The window manager needs to know which window the user wishes to use. For example, if two windows allow text input, then the user must tell the computer into which window he/she wishes the keyboard input to go. This is called giving a window focus. It is sometimes necessary to click a window in order to use it, but some window managers offer 'focus follows pointer', so that moving the mouse over a different window activates it for use. Widgets within the window may require a further click to focus them, to differentiate the different places input may go.