Chapter 4: Working with Windows Types of Windows –Program Windows –Message Boxes –Dialog Boxes Elements of a Window –Window Panes –Scroll Bars –Menus –Tool Bars –Title Bars –Control Buttons –Command Buttons –Text and List Boxes –Radio Buttons and Checkboxes –Status Bars Moving and Resizing Windows

Type of Windows Program windows: –Encapsulates the operation of one application. –Considered to be the true windows. –Each application you open or run within windows has its own window i.e. each program runs within its own ‘protected’ environment. Program window Application window

Type of Windows Message Boxes: –Show the state of your actions, ask for confirmation before you proceed with another action, or warn you of a problem.

Type of Windows Dialog Boxes: –An object displayed to present information or request input is called a dialog box. –It has the sole purpose of getting additional information from you to perform your desired actions. –Both windows and the Macintosh GUIs have a convention that any menu item followed by ellipsis (…) will open a dialog box for further input.

Elements of a Window Windows Panes –Panes usually can be resized to show more in one pane than another, can have their own scroll bars, and sometimes can be disabled or removed from view. Toolbar Menu Control buttons Vertical Scrollbar Navigation paneFolder pane

Elements of a Window Scroll Bars –To view areas of a window that extend beyond its borders. –They appear only when needed. –Two types of scrollbars – horizontal and vertical. Control Buttons –The three buttons on the right of a title bar (as shown in Figure 4.7) are known as the Control Buttons. These buttons provide the following functions when clicked: (the leftmost button) - Minimize the active window. (the center button) - Maximize the active window or Restore it to its previous size. When the window is Maximized the center button turns to the Restore Down button. (the right button) - Close the application

Menus –A window element that is a list of available commands is called a menu. –Each subordinate menu opened by a menu command is called a submenu. Elements of a Window Windows menus use the following conventions: A menu command…Will… followed by a triangle  ► Open a submenu following by ellipsis points...Open a dialog box for further input with no additional notationExecute the action or command

Executes a menu command Opens a Submenu } Opens a Dialog box (…) Submenu

Tool Bars –They are like graphical menus – collection of buttons and other window objects, which execute an application’s commands i.e. save, copy, cut, open, print or more complex functions specific to the application. –Toolbars can use buttons, textboxes, list boxes and other objects to get input from the users. –Many complex applications like Word or Excel have numerous toolbars that you can choose to hide or display depending on your current needs. –Same programs allow you to ‘dock’ toolbars on the bottom or the sides of a window as shown in the next slide Elements of a Window

Floating toolbar Toolbar docked on the side of the window Drawing toolbar docked at the bottom of the window “Standard” toolbars Toolbars as displayed in Microsoft Excel 2002

Title Bars –Gives the name of the application the window contains –A window can be minimized or maximized By clicking on the middle of the title bar or, By clicking on the application icon and selecting an option from the menu or, By using control buttons –The program can be exited by using the application icon’s menu or by clicking a control button. –Double clicking on the icon will usually close the program, without any further notice. Elements of a Window Filename and Application Control buttons Application icon The Microsoft Paint title bar

Command Buttons –Are a type of button that perform a single action, it is much like any menu or toolbar command, but these buttons are conveniently placed for the user. Text and List boxes –Text box – accept your input as character. –List box – a window element that allows you to select from a predefined list called a list box. –Dropdown list box – a dropdown list box is essentially a variant of a normal list box and used to save space in a window, so the list is only revealed when the user clicks on the down pointing arrow. Radio buttons and Checkboxes –These objects are used to obtain input values as either True or False. –Checkbox – if not checked the condition is ‘False’, that is the user does NOT want to use these options and vice a versa. –Radio buttons – usually set in a way that selecting one will deselect the others i.e. they are mutually exclusive. The next slide shows these elements of a window under windows print dialog box. Elements of a Window

Command buttons List box Dropdown List box Text box Radio Buttons Check boxes A Windows Print dialog showing some basic elements of a window

Status Bars –They are located at the bottom of the windows –Display information relating to a user’s current activity in the program as shown in the following example… Elements of a Window Status bar from Adobe Acrobat Status bar from Microsoft Word

Moving & Resizing Windows To move a window grab the title bar with your left mouse button and drag to its new location and release the button. The window will be placed where put it. Resizing a window can be done using maximizing or minimizing or restore down control buttons. To change a window’s: –Width – Move the mouse cursor over the window’s left or right border, when the cursor changes to a ↔ drag the border to either expand or contract the window (Figure 4.11). –Height - Move the mouse cursor over the window’s top or bottom border, when the cursor changes to a ↕ drag the border to either expand or contract the window –Height and Width (diagonal resizing) - Move the mouse cursor over one of the window’s corners, when the cursor changes to the double headed arrow drag the border to either expand or contract the window in the direction of the arrow.

Mouse pointer ready to resize the window Mouse cursor ready to resize a WordPad window's width