Window (computing)
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In computing, a window is a visual area, usually rectangular in shape, containing some kind of user interface, displaying the output of and allowing input for one of a number of simultaneously running computer processes. Windows are primarily associated with graphical displays, where they can be manipulated with a pointer. A graphical user interface (GUI) that uses windows as one of its main metaphors is called a windowing system.
The idea was initially developed by researchers at the Stanford Research Institute, led by Douglas Engelbart. Their systems used non-overlapping or tiled windows. This was further developed as a part of the WIMP paradigm at Xerox Corporation's Palo Alto Research Center, PARC, led by Alan Kay. Their systems used overlapping windows. Overlapping systems have become far more common than non-overlapping systems. Steve Jobs, cofounder of Apple, Inc., visited PARC and, seeing the potential of the GUI, worked with Xerox briefly on a version of the interface, eventually developing it independently for Apple's Lisa and later Macintosh computer lines, the first to successfully bring such GUI's to market. Bill Gates, founder of Microsoft, was an early supporter of such interfaces and initially concentrated on developing windows-based applications for the Mac, offering to partner with Jobs, before developing Microsoft's own similar system, which dominates the personal computer market today.
Windows are almost always depicted as two-dimensional objects (like papers or books) arranged on a desktop. Most windows can be resized, moved, hidden, restored, and closed at will. When two overlap, one is on top of the other, with the covered part of the lower window not visible. However, many programs with text user interfaces, for example Emacs, allow their display to be divided into areas which may also be referred to as "windows". The part of a windowing system which manages these operations is called a window manager.
Windows are a feature (or widget) in most graphical user interfaces (especially WIMP ones). DEC Windows (for VMS), X Window System (for GNU & Unix-like systems), Microsoft Windows and Sun's OpenWindows are named after this feature.
Many applications in which it is possible to work with more than one file at a time, such as an image-editing program, will put each file in a separate window and will allow the windows to be tiled, so that all of them are visible. There is usually a distinction between the main application window and its child windows, so sometimes a big application like this will force windows to minimize to a location at the bottom of the main window, instead of the operating system's window docking area.
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