In computing, a window is a
graphical control element
A graphical widget (also graphical control element or control) in a graphical user interface is an element of interaction, such as a button or a scroll bar. Controls are software components that a computer user interacts with through direct ...
. It consists of a visual area containing some of the
graphical user interface of the program it belongs to and is framed by a
window decoration. It usually has a rectangular shape
that can overlap with the area of other windows. It displays the ''output'' of and may allow ''input'' to one or more
processes
A process is a series or set of activities that interact to produce a result; it may occur once-only or be recurrent or periodic.
Things called a process include:
Business and management
*Business process, activities that produce a specific se ...
.
Windows are primarily associated with graphical displays, where they can be manipulated with a
pointer by employing some kind of
pointing device. Text-only displays can also support windowing, as a way to maintain multiple independent display areas, such as multiple buffers in
Emacs
Emacs , originally named EMACS (an acronym for "Editor MACroS"), is a family of text editors that are characterized by their extensibility. The manual for the most widely used variant, GNU Emacs, describes it as "the extensible, customizable, s ...
. Text windows are usually controlled by keyboard, though some also respond to the mouse.
A graphical user interface (GUI) using windows as one of its main "
metaphors" is called a
windowing system, whose main components are the
display server and the
window manager.
History
The idea was developed at the
Stanford Research Institute (led by
Douglas Engelbart
Douglas Carl Engelbart (January 30, 1925 – July 2, 2013) was an American engineer and inventor, and an early computer and Internet pioneer. He is best known for his work on founding the field of human–computer interaction, particularly ...
).
Their earliest systems supported multiple windows, but there was no obvious way to indicate boundaries between them (such as window borders,
title bars, etc.).
Research continued at
Xerox Corporation's
Palo Alto Research Center /
PARC (led by
Alan Kay). They used overlapping windows.
During the 1980s the term "
WIMP", which stands for window, icon, menu, pointer, was coined at PARC.
Apple had worked with PARC briefly at that time. Apple developed an interface based on PARC's interface. It was first used on
Apple's Lisa and later
Macintosh computers.
Microsoft was developing Office applications for the Mac at that time. Some speculate that this gave them access to Apple's OS before it was released and thus influenced the design of the windowing system in what would eventually be called
Microsoft Windows
Windows is a group of several proprietary graphical operating system families developed and marketed by Microsoft. Each family caters to a certain sector of the computing industry. For example, Windows NT for consumers, Windows Server for serv ...
.
Properties
Windows are two dimensional objects arranged on a plane called the
desktop metaphor. In a modern full-featured windowing system they can be resized, moved, hidden, restored or closed.
Windows usually include other graphical objects, possibly including a menu-bar, toolbars, controls, icons and often a working area. In the working area, the document, image, folder contents or other main object is displayed. Around the working area, within the bounding window, there may be other smaller window areas, sometimes called panes or panels, showing relevant information or options. The working area of a
single document interface holds only one main object. "Child windows" in
multiple document interfaces, and
tabs for example in many web browsers, can make several similar documents or main objects available within a single main application window. Some windows in
Mac OS X have a feature called a drawer, which is a pane that slides out the side of the window and to show extra options.
Applications that can run either under a
graphical user interface or in a
text user interface may use different terminology.
GNU Emacs uses the term 'window' to refer to an area within its display while a traditional window, such as controlled by an
X11 window manager, is called a 'frame'.
Any window can be split into the window decoration and the window's content, although some systems purposely eschew window decoration as a form of
minimalism
In visual arts, music and other media, minimalism is an art movement that began in post–World War II in Western art, most strongly with American visual arts in the 1960s and early 1970s. Prominent artists associated with minimalism include Don ...
.
Window decoration
The window decoration is a part of a window in most
windowing systems.
A windows decoration typically consists of a title bar, usually along the top of each window and a minimal border around the other three sides. On Microsoft Windows this is called "non-client area".
In the predominant layout for modern window decorations, the top bar contains the title of that window and buttons which perform windowing-related actions such as:
* Close
* Maximize
* Minimize
* Resize
* Roll-up
The border exists primarily to allow the user to resize the window, but also to create a visual separation between the window's contents and the rest of the
desktop environment.
Window decorations are considered important for the design of the
look and feel of an
operating system and some systems allow for customization of the colors, styles and animation effects used.
Window border
Window border is a window decoration component provided by some window managers, that appears around the
active window. Some window managers may also display a border around
background window
Background may refer to:
Performing arts and stagecraft
* Background actor
* Background artist
* Background light
* Background music
* Background story
* Background vocals
* ''Background'' (play), a 1950 play by Warren Chetham-Strode
Recor ...
s. Typically window borders can be used to provide
window motion
A window is an opening in a wall, door, roof, or vehicle that allows the exchange of light and may also allow the passage of sound and sometimes air. Modern windows are usually glazed or covered in some other transparent or translucent mater ...
enabling the window to be moved or resized by using a
drag
Drag or The Drag may refer to:
Places
* Drag, Norway, a village in Tysfjord municipality, Nordland, Norway
* ''Drág'', the Hungarian name for Dragu Commune in Sălaj County, Romania
* Drag (Austin, Texas), the portion of Guadalupe Street adj ...
action. Some window managers provide useless borders which are purely for decorative purposes and offer no window motion facility. These window managers do not allow windows to be resized by using a drag action on the border.
Titlebar
The Titlebar is a
graphical control element
A graphical widget (also graphical control element or control) in a graphical user interface is an element of interaction, such as a button or a scroll bar. Controls are software components that a computer user interacts with through direct ...
and part of the window decoration provided by some window managers. As a convention, it is located at the top of the window as a horizontal bar. The titlebar is typically used to display the name of the application or the name of the open document, and may provide title bar buttons for minimizing, maximizing, closing or rolling up of application windows. These functions are typically placed in the top-right of the screen to allow fast and inaccurate inputs through
barrier pointing
Barrier pointing (or "edge pointing") is a term used in human–computer interaction to describe a design technique in which targets are placed on the peripheral borders of touchscreen interfaces to aid in motor control. Where targets are placed ...
. Typically titlebars can be used to provide window motion enabling the window to be moved around the screen by using a drag action. Some window managers provide titlebars which are purely for decorative purposes and offer no window motion facility. These window managers do not allow windows to be moved around the screen by using a drag action on the titlebar.
Default title-bar text often incorporates the name of the application and/or of its developer. The name of the
host
A host is a person responsible for guests at an event or for providing hospitality during it.
Host may also refer to:
Places
* Host, Pennsylvania, a village in Berks County
People
*Jim Host (born 1937), American businessman
* Michel Host ...
running the application also appears frequently. Various methods (
menu-selections,
escape sequences
In computer science, an escape sequence is a combination of characters that has a meaning other than the literal characters contained therein; it is marked by one or more preceding (and possibly terminating) characters.
Examples
* In C and man ...
, setup parameters,
command-line options – depending on the computing environment) may exist to give the
end-user some control of title-bar text. Document-oriented applications like a
text editor may display the
filename
A filename or file name is a name used to uniquely identify a computer file in a directory structure. Different file systems impose different restrictions on filename lengths.
A filename may (depending on the file system) include:
* name &ndas ...
or
path of the document being edited. Most
web browsers will
render the contents of the
HTML element
An HTML element is a type of HTML (HyperText Markup Language) document component, one of several types of HTML nodes (there are also text nodes, comment nodes and others). The first used version of HTML was written by Tim Berners-Lee in 1993 ...
title
in their title bar, sometimes pre- or postfixed by the application name.
Google Chrome
Google Chrome is a cross-platform web browser developed by Google. It was first released in 2008 for Microsoft Windows, built with free software components from Apple WebKit and Mozilla Firefox. Versions were later released for Linux, macOS ...
and some versions of
Mozilla Firefox
Mozilla Firefox, or simply Firefox, is a free and open-source web browser developed by the Mozilla Foundation and its subsidiary, the Mozilla Corporation. It uses the Gecko rendering engine to display web pages, which implements current and a ...
place their
tabs in the title bar. This makes it unnecessary to use the main window for the tabs, but usually results in the title becoming truncated. An asterisk at its beginning may be used to signify unsaved changes.
The title bar often contains
widgets for system commands relating to the window, such as a ''maximize'', ''minimize'', ''rollup'' and ''close'' buttons; and may include other content such as an application icon, a
clock, etc.
In many
graphical user interfaces, including the
Mac OS and
Microsoft Windows
Windows is a group of several proprietary graphical operating system families developed and marketed by Microsoft. Each family caters to a certain sector of the computing industry. For example, Windows NT for consumers, Windows Server for serv ...
interfaces, the user may move a window by
grabbing the title bar and
dragging.
Titlebar buttons
Some window managers provide titlebar buttons which provide the facility to minimize, maximize, roll-up or close application windows. Some window managers may display the titlebar buttons in the taskbar or taskpanel, rather than in the titlebars.
The following buttons may appear in the titlebar:
* Close
* Maximize
* Minimize
* Resize
* Roll-up (or
WindowShade)
Note that a
context menu may be available from some titlebar buttons or by right-clicking.
Titlebar icon
Some window managers display a small icon in the titlebar that may vary according to the application on which it appears. The titlebar icon may behave like a menu button, or may provide a context menu facility. OS X applications commonly have a proxy
icon next to the window title that functions the same as the document's icon in the file manager.
Document status icon
Some window managers display an icon or symbol to indicate that the contents of the window have not been saved or confirmed in some way:
Mac OS X displays a dot in the center of its close button;
RISC OS appends an
asterisk
The asterisk ( ), from Late Latin , from Ancient Greek , ''asteriskos'', "little star", is a typographical symbol. It is so called because it resembles a conventional image of a heraldic star.
Computer scientists and mathematicians often voc ...
to the title.
Tiling window managers
Some
tiling window managers provide title bars which are purely for informative purposes and offer no controls or menus. These window managers do not allow windows to be moved around the screen by using a
drag
Drag or The Drag may refer to:
Places
* Drag, Norway, a village in Tysfjord municipality, Nordland, Norway
* ''Drág'', the Hungarian name for Dragu Commune in Sălaj County, Romania
* Drag (Austin, Texas), the portion of Guadalupe Street adj ...
action on the titlebar and may also serve the purpose of a
status line
A status bar is a graphical control element which poses an information area typically found at the window's bottom.
It can be divided into sections to group information. Its job is primarily to display information about the current state of its ...
from stacking window managers.
In popular operating systems
See also
*
Client-Side Decoration
*
Display server
*
Graphical user interface
*
Human interface guidelines
*
WIMP (computing)
*
Window manager
References
{{Authority control
Graphical control elements
Graphical user interface elements