Many computer

user interface In the industrial design field of human–computer interaction, a user interface (UI) is the space where interactions between humans and machines occur. The goal of this interaction is to allow effective operation and control of the machine f ...

s use a control panel metaphor to give the user control of software and hardware features. The control

panel Panel may refer to: Arts and media Visual arts * Panel (comics), a single image in a comic book, comic strip or cartoon; also, a comic strip containing one such image *Panel painting, in art, either one element of a multi-element piece of art ...

consists of multiple settings including display settings, network settings, user account settings, and hardware settings. Some control panels require the user to have admin rights or root access.

Computer history

The term control panel was used for the

plugboard A plugboard or control panel (the term used depends on the application area) is an array of jacks or sockets (often called hubs) into which patch cords can be inserted to complete an electrical circuit. Control panels are sometimes used to di ...

s in

unit record equipment Starting at the end of the nineteenth century, well before the advent of electronic computers, data processing was performed using electromechanical machines collectively referred to as unit record equipment, electric accounting machines (EAM) or ...

and in the early computers of the 1940s and '50s. In the 1980s, the

Xerox Star The Xerox Star workstation, officially named Xerox 8010 Information System, is the first commercial personal computer to incorporate technologies that have since become standard in personal computers, including a bitmapped display, a window-based ...

and the Apple Lisa, which pioneered the first graphical user interface metaphors, controlled user settings by single click selections and variable fields. In 1984 the Apple Macintosh in its initial release made use of fundamental graphic representation of a "control panel board" imitating the operation of slider controls, on/off buttons and radio-select buttons that corresponded to user settings.

Functionality

There are many tasks grouped in a control panel:

Hardware

* Color **

Color management In digital imaging systems, color management (or colour management) is the controlled conversion between the color representations of various devices, such as image scanners, digital cameras, monitors, TV screens, film printers, computer printer ...

Computer display A computer monitor is an output device that displays information in pictorial or textual form. A discrete monitor comprises a visual display, support electronics, power supply, housing, electrical connectors, and external user controls. The ...

s **

Brightness Brightness is an attribute of visual perception in which a source appears to be radiating or reflecting light. In other words, brightness is the perception elicited by the luminance of a visual target. The perception is not linear to luminan ...

** Contrast **

Color calibration The aim of color calibration is to measure and/or adjust the color response of a device (input or output) to a known state. In International Color Consortium (ICC) terms, this is the basis for an additional color characterization of the device ...

Energy saving Energy conservation is the effort to reduce wasteful energy consumption by using fewer energy services. This can be done by using energy more effectively (using less energy for continuous service) or changing one's behavior to use less service (f ...

Gamma correction Gamma correction or gamma is a nonlinear operation used to encode and decode luminance or tristimulus values in video or still image systems. Gamma correction is, in the simplest cases, defined by the following power-law expression: : V_\tex ...

Screen resolution The display resolution or display modes of a digital television, computer monitor or display device is the number of distinct pixels in each dimension that can be displayed. It can be an ambiguous term especially as the displayed resolution i ...

and

orientation Orientation may refer to: Positioning in physical space * Map orientation, the relationship between directions on a map and compass directions * Orientation (housing), the position of a building with respect to the sun, a concept in building de ...

Graphics tablet A graphics tablet (also known as a digitizer, digital graphic tablet, pen tablet, drawing tablet, external drawing pad or digital art board) is a computer input device that enables a user to hand-draw images, animations and graphics, with a spec ...

Keyboard Keyboard may refer to: Text input * Keyboard, part of a typewriter * Computer keyboard ** Keyboard layout, the software control of computer keyboards and their mapping ** Keyboard technology, computer keyboard hardware and firmware Music * Musi ...

** Shortcuts and bindings **

Language Language is a structured system of communication. The structure of a language is its grammar and the free components are its vocabulary. Languages are the primary means by which humans communicate, and may be conveyed through a variety of ...

and

layout Layout may refer to: * Page layout, the arrangement of visual elements on a page ** Comprehensive layout (comp), a proposed page layout presented by a designer to their client * Layout (computing), the process of calculating the position of obj ...

** Text cursor appearance * Mouse and

touchpad A touchpad or trackpad is a pointing device featuring a tactile sensor, a specialized surface that can translate the motion and position of a user's fingers to a relative position on the operating system that is made output to the screen. Touchp ...

Power management Power management is a feature of some electrical appliances, especially copiers, computers, computer CPUs, computer GPUs and computer peripherals such as monitors and printers, that turns off the power or switches the system to a low-power st ...

** Energy saving **

Battery Battery most often refers to: * Electric battery, a device that provides electrical power * Battery (crime), a crime involving unlawful physical contact Battery may also refer to: Energy source *Automotive battery, a device to provide power t ...

usage ** Display brightness ** Power button actions ** Power plans *

Printer Printer may refer to: Technology * Printer (publishing), a person or a company * Printer (computing), a hardware device * Optical printer for motion picture films People * Nariman Printer (fl. c. 1940), Indian journalist and activist * James ...

s and

scanners ''Scanners'' is a 1981 Canadian science fiction horror film written and directed by David Cronenberg and starring Stephen Lack, Jennifer O'Neill, Michael Ironside, and Patrick McGoohan. In the film, "scanners" are psychics with unusual telepathi ...

* Sound

Networking

Bluetooth Bluetooth is a short-range wireless technology standard that is used for exchanging data between fixed and mobile devices over short distances and building personal area networks (PANs). In the most widely used mode, transmission power is limi ...

connection and file exchange *

Ethernet Ethernet () is a family of wired computer networking technologies commonly used in local area networks (LAN), metropolitan area networks (MAN) and wide area networks (WAN). It was commercially introduced in 1980 and first standardized in 1 ...

connection * Internet Accounts **

E-mail Electronic mail (email or e-mail) is a method of exchanging messages ("mail") between people using electronic devices. Email was thus conceived as the electronic (digital) version of, or counterpart to, mail, at a time when "mail" meant ...

integration **

Social media Social media are interactive media technologies that facilitate the creation and sharing of information, ideas, interests, and other forms of expression through virtual communities and networks. While challenges to the definition of ''social medi ...

integration *

Wi-Fi Wi-Fi () is a family of wireless network protocols, based on the IEEE 802.11 family of standards, which are commonly used for local area networking of devices and Internet access, allowing nearby digital devices to exchange data by radio wav ...

connection * System-wide

proxy Proxy may refer to: * Proxy or agent (law), a substitute authorized to act for another entity or a document which authorizes the agent so to act * Proxy (climate), a measured variable used to infer the value of a variable of interest in climate ...

Security

* Certificates and

password management There are several forms of software used to help users or organizations better manage passwords: * Intended for use by a single user: ** Password manager software is used by individuals to organize and encrypt many personal passwords using a singl ...

Firewall Firewall may refer to: * Firewall (computing), a technological barrier designed to prevent unauthorized or unwanted communications between computer networks or hosts * Firewall (construction), a barrier inside a building, designed to limit the spr ...

* Filesystem encryption * Privacy ** File indexing and event tracking **

Data sharing Data sharing is the practice of making data used for scholarly research available to other investigators. Many funding agencies, institutions, and publication venues have policies regarding data sharing because transparency and openness are consid ...

System

* Login window * System information **

Hostname In computer networking, a hostname (archaically nodename) is a label that is assigned to a device connected to a computer network and that is used to identify the device in various forms of electronic communication, such as the World Wide Web. Hos ...

System time In computer science and computer programming, system time represents a computer system's notion of the passage of time. In this sense, ''time'' also includes the passing of days on the calendar. System time is measured by a ''system clock'', w ...

Calendar system A calendar is a system of organizing days. This is done by giving names to periods of time, typically days, weeks, months and years. A date is the designation of a single and specific day within such a system. A calendar is also a phy ...

** NTP server **

Time zone A time zone is an area which observes a uniform standard time for legal, commercial and social purposes. Time zones tend to follow the boundaries between countries and their subdivisions instead of strictly following longitude, because it ...

* Software management ** Application management ** System update configuration ** Software sources

Different types

*In Microsoft Windows

operating system An operating system (OS) is system software that manages computer hardware, software resources, and provides common services for computer programs. Time-sharing operating systems schedule tasks for efficient use of the system and may also i ...

s, the Control Panel and Settings app are where various computer settings can be modified. *In the classic Mac OS, a control panel served a similar purpose. In

macOS macOS (; previously OS X and originally Mac OS X) is a Unix operating system developed and marketed by Apple Inc. since 2001. It is the primary operating system for Apple's Mac computers. Within the market of desktop and lapt ...

, the equivalent to control panels are referred to as System Preferences. *In

web hosting A web hosting service is a type of Internet hosting service that hosts websites for clients, i.e. it offers the facilities required for them to create and maintain a site and makes it accessible on the World Wide Web. Companies providing we ...

, browser-based control panels, such as

CPanel cPanel is a web hosting control panel software developed by cPanel, LLC. It provides a graphical interface (GUI) and automation tools designed to simplify the process of hosting a web site to the website owner or the "end user". It enables admin ...

and

Plesk Plesk is a commercial web hosting and server data center automation software developed for Linux and Windows-based retail hosting service providers. It was developed by Plesk International GmbH, with headquarters in Toronto, Canada and Sch ...

, are used to manage servers, web services and users. * There are different control panels in free desktops, like GNOME,

KDE KDE is an international free software community that develops free and open-source software. As a central development hub, it provides tools and resources that allow collaborative work on this kind of software. Well-known products include the ...

Webmin Webmin is a powerful and flexible web-based server management control panel for Unix-like systems. Webmin allows the user to configure operating system internals, such as users, disk quotas, services or configuration files, as well as modify an ...

...

References

User interfaces {{software-stub