Windows
are one of the most basic and often used ways of interacting
with your computer. They are used by most of the programs that
you might run. The few exceptions would be programs like games
that run completely without use of windows common graphical
interface components (or shell out of windows) such as the start
menu and the task bar.
 What
I refer to as a window is a box or a frame around the program
you are interacting with such as shown in figure A. Most of
what you see here will be the same no matter what program you
are working with, no matter if it is a Windows Explorer window
or a word processor document. Let us look at the individual
parts of a window.
Moving down the left
side of this window, in the upper left hand portion (were the
small folder icon is) is where the title of what ever it is
you are working on will be displayed. For instance the title
of this page that is displayed up there is "All about windows,
no curtains needed". If you were using windows explorer
to browse the contents of your computer the title would be the
name of the folder you are currently viewing. Next you would
see the menu lists. These menus are going to be different (or
possibly not shown at all) depending on what program you are
running. If you are working in Outlook Express there will be
menu items to create a new email message and so on. If you are
working in Windows Explorer you will have options to create
a new folder inside of the current view, among other options.
Below are some buttons that would provide access to commonly
used commands (depending on the application that is being used)
Just below these (depending on how your program display is configured)
is the "address" field. If you are using Internet
Explorer this will show the URL of the page. The page address
of the page you are currently viewing is http://www.copperjacket.com/pc-tech/computer-basics3.htm.
If you were working inside of Windows Explorer (or any other
file/folder viewing utility) the address would show your current
location inside of the hierarchy of the storage organization.
For instance if you were looking inside of a folder named "current
project" inside of your "my documents" folder.
The title at the top of the window would say "Current project"
the address would say C:\My Documents\current project as your
location. Further down is the actual window area where what
ever it is you are working on is located. The figure I have
shown is a blank black area, depending on what you are working
on this area might be filled will folder icons, in the case
of a Windows Explorer window, or with text such as would be
the case with a word processor document. At the top left of
this window will be three  different
buttons First of them is an icon that looks like a line.The
line button means to minimize, or make drop down off of the
desktop and into the task bar. The next (from left to right)
button will either be a double square or a single square. If
it is a single square pressing it will make the window expand
to cover the entire screen. If it is a double square pressing
it will return it to a resizable configuration so that multiple
windows can be displayed on your desktop at one time. The last
icon of the "X" will close the window. If you are
inside of a program such as a word processor or others pressing
this will also close the program as well. You might be asked
is you would like to save your changes or not.
|
