Fundamentals Window

Window Fundamentals
In a graphical operating system, information is represented in graphical ways. Little symbols or pictures (called icons) are used to display programs or information. Information is displayed inside windows, each of which has similar properties.
It is possible to have more than one window on the screen at one time, and windows may be cascaded (on top of one another) or tiled (all displayed at once and all visible).

In this picture, the windows have been cascaded. This makes each window appear on top of each other, one after the other. The front most window is considered to be the active window, ie, the window to which the users commands will be sent. In Windows95 or WindowsNT, the titlebar of the window is shown in the default color Blue.

In this picture, the images have been tiled. This makes all windows visible at the same time, but resizes the dimensions of each window so that they all fit on the available screen space at once.

Tip: To cascade or tile all windows on the desktop area, right mouse click on an empty portion of the taskbar and select Cascade Windows or Tile Windows from the menu.

Window Properties
Each window has the same properties and behaves the same way. This provides a consistent interface to the user, as all commands are the same for each window and the operations that the user performs on each window are identical.
In the diagram below, we see the basic window as presented by Windows 95 or Windows NT. Each property is listed on the diagram, and below is an explanation for each of the window components.

The Title Bar
This normally displays the name of the program associated with the window. If the background color of the title bar is blue, the window is active and any user commands will be processed by that window. You can also toggle between a maximized window size and the windows normal size by double clicking in the title bar area.
The Control Menu
Clicking on the Control Menu pops up a small Window of selectable options, which include the operations of Restore, Move, Size, Maximize, Minimize and Close the Window.
The Horizontal and Vertical Scroll Bars
When the amount of information displayed in the window exceeds the viewing space of the window, scroll bars are automatically to the side and bottom of the window. This allows the user to scroll the contents of the window in order to view the remaining information. Arrows are used to indicate the direction of scrolling on the scroll bar, and an indicator bar represents the relative position of the viewing area compared to the total size of the information.
Clicking on the arrows associated with the scroll bar move the viewing window up or down one line, or across or back one character position. You can also click on the small indicator bar within the scroll bar and drag it with the mouse to quickly scroll the windows contents.