An example of a graphical user interface in Ubuntu, with two application windows displayed, one partly overlapping the other

A example of Window in Microsoft Windows Vista

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. Ubuntu Kubuntu Edubuntu Xubuntu Gobuntu --> Ubuntu Computing is usually defined like the activity of using and developing Computer technology Computer hardware and software. The user interface (or Human Computer Interface) is the aggregate of means by which people&mdash the users '&mdash interact with the System 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. A windowing system (or window system) is a component of a Graphical user interface (GUI and more specifically of a Desktop environment, which supports

The idea was initially developed by researchers at the Stanford Research Institute, led by Douglas Engelbart. SRI International, based in the United States is one of the world's largest contract Research institutes. Dr Douglas C Engelbart (born January 30 1925 is an American Inventor. Their systems used non-overlapping or tiled windows. In computing a tiling window manager is a Window manager with an organization of the screen into mutually non-overlapping frames as opposed to the more popular approach This was further developed as a part of the WIMP paradigm at Xerox Corporation's Palo Alto Research Center, PARC, led by Alan Kay. In Human–computer interaction, WIMP stands for " window, icon, menu, Pointing device " denoting a style of interaction Xerox Corporation ( (name ˈziːrɒks is a global document management company which manufactures and sells a range of color and black-and-white printers, multifunction Palo Alto (ˌpæloʊˈæltoʊ from Spanish: palo: "stick" and alto: "high" i PARC (Palo Alto Research Center Inc formerly Xerox PARC, is a Research and development company in Palo Alto California that began as a division of Alan Curtis Kay (born May 17, 1940) is an American Computer scientist, known for his early pioneering work on Object-oriented programming 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. The desktop metaphor is an Interface metaphor which is a set of unifying concepts used by Graphical user interfaces to help users more easily interact with the 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". Emacs is a class of feature-rich Text editors usually characterized by their extensibility The part of a windowing system which manages these operations is called a window manager. A window manager is Computer software that controls the placement and appearance of windows within a Windowing system in a Graphical user interface

Windows are a feature (or widget) in most graphical user interfaces (especially WIMP ones). In computer programming a widget (or control) is an element of a Graphical user interface (GUI that displays an information arrangement changeable by the user In Human–computer interaction, WIMP stands for " window, icon, menu, Pointing device " denoting a style of interaction DEC Windows (for VMS), X Window System (for GNU & Unix-like systems), Microsoft Windows and Sun's OpenWindows are named after this feature. The Common Desktop Environment ( CDE) a Graphical Desktop environment for Unix, leverages the Motif Widget toolkit Open Virtual Memory System ( OpenVMS) initially known just as Virtual Memory System ( VMS) is the name of a High-end Computer server GNU ( pronounced) is a computer Operating system composed entirely of Free software. A Unix-like (sometimes shortened to *nix) Operating system is one that behaves in a manner similar to a Unix system while not necessarily conforming Microsoft Windows is a series of Software Operating systems and Graphical user interfaces produced by Microsoft. Sun Microsystems Inc ( is a multinational vendor of Computers computer components Computer software, and Information technology services OpenWindows was a Graphical user interface environment for Sun Microsystems Workstations which handled SunView, NeWS, and

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.

See also

• Window manager
• Graphical user interface
• Human interface guidelines
• WIMP (computing)