Windowing system

From Free net encyclopedia

A windowing system is a graphical user interface (GUI) which uses the window as one of its primary metaphors. It is normally one part of a larger desktop environment.

From a programmer's point of view, a windowing system implements graphical primitives such as rendering fonts or drawing a line on the screen, effectively providing an abstraction of the graphics hardware.

A window system enables the computer user to work with several programs at the same time. Each program runs in its own window, which is a rectangular area of the screen. Most window systems allow windows to overlap, and provide means for the user to perform standard operations such as moving/resizing a window, sending a window to the foreground/background and minimizing/maximizing a window.

Some window systems, like X, have advanced capabilities such as network transparency, allowing the user to run graphical applications on a remote machine.

See also

• History of the graphical user interface

List of windowing systems

• 8½ and rio for Plan 9
• GEM
• Fresco/Berlin
• NEXTSTEP
• Quartz Compositor for Mac OS X
• X Window System
• Y Window System
• Some operating systems, such as Microsoft Windows, Mac OS (version 9 and earlier), and Palm OS, contain a windowing system which is integrated with the OS.

References

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