CD ROM Paradise Collection 4/CD ROM Paradise Collection 4 1995 Nov.iso/win/oswdemo.zip/OSWDMO10.ZIP/CHAP-3.TXT

Text File | 1994-10-09 | 25KB | 483 lines

CHAPTER 3
EXPLAINING MICROSOFT WINDOWS
Chapter Summary
This chapter is primarily concerned with defining and
explaining terms and concepts used in Windows.
Sections 3.1 and 3.2 explain how the mouse moves the
pointer around on the screen, and how icons and
symbols represent programs, files, and functions.
Section 3.3 has 3 sub-sections_windows, menus, and
dialogs_and describes the different features found in
each. Section 3.3.1 explains how to use the Minimize,
Maximize, and Control menu symbols; describes the
menu bar; explains how to scroll a window by clicking
on the scroll bars; and explains the concept of
parent windows which can contain multiple child
windows. Section 3.3.2 describes how a menu is pulled
down from the menu bar by clicking on its title, and
how commands can then be chosen from it with a single
click. Section 3.3.3 explains dialog boxes and their
most common functions and features, such as clicking
on different types of buttons; how to open and make
selections from combo boxes; how to type text into an
edit box; the organizational function of group boxes;
and the concept of clicking, or double-clicking, on
an item to select it from a scrolling list box.
3.1    The Mouse and the Pointer
The pointer is one of the most important elements of
Microsoft Windows. It is a small, usually arrow-shaped
cursor which is used to "point" at objects displayed on
the screen. It is moved from place to place on the
screen by means of a mouse or other device attached to
the computer.
The mouse is about the size of a deck of playing cards,
and is normally attached to the computer with a wire.
As the mouse is moved around on a flat surface, the
pointer on the screen moves in a corresponding
direction. By moving the mouse, the pointer on the
screen can be brought in contact with the images on the
screen.
On the mouse, there is at least one button. This button
is used to select objects that the pointer is currently
touching. This is called "clicking" on, or "selecting,"
an item. This is a vital piece of terminology for using
Windows. For example, icons and symbols are selected by
placing the pointer on them and clicking (Section 3.2);
windows are activated by clicking inside them (Section
3.3.1); menus are revealed by clicking on their titles
(Section 3.3.2); and buttons within dialog boxes are
chosen by placing the pointer on them and clicking
(Section 3.3.3.1).
Selecting an item, such as a block of text or a window,
usually causes it to become highlighted. This is how
Microsoft Windows indicates that the item is ready to
be used. Depending on the situation, highlighting can
be accomplished in several different ways, but the most
common is a single click on the item of interest.
A single click is also used to position the text
insertion cursor, or "caret," when editing text. It is
extremely important to understand the difference
between the caret and the pointer. The caret is a
different cursor from the pointer. It marks the
location where text will be inserted when the user
types on the keyboard. The pointer can be moved
anywhere on the screen, but the caret is restricted to
editable text. When the mouse is moved, the pointer
moves in a corresponding direction, but the caret
remains fixed. To relocate the caret within editable
text, the user places the pointer at the desired
location and clicks. The caret then jumps from its old
location to the spot where the pointer was clicked.
Double-clicking is another term that you will encounter
in this and other manuals. It simply means to place
your pointer on top of an object (such as an icon) and
click the button twice in rapid succession. This action
is often available as a shortcut when opening files or
directories. The pointer is placed on the picture or
text representing the file or directory, and the mouse
button is quickly clicked twice.
Dragging is also a frequently used term. When an item
is dragged, the pointer is placed on top of it, and the
mouse button is pressed and held down. Without
releasing the button, the pointer is moved to a new
location, and the button is then released. This causes
the object under the pointer to be dragged along in the
direction that the pointer is being moved. Dragging is
used to move items from one place to another, or when
adjusting certain types of controls. For example, many
word processors display tab settings as small symbols
along a graphical ruler. To reset tab stops or margins,
these symbols can be dragged from one location to
another on the ruler. Dragging is also used in word
processors, to highlight a block of text.
The mouse is not the only way to move the pointer, but
it is the most common. There are track balls, joy
sticks, and touch pads, all of which perform basically
the same function as the mouse: that of moving the
pointer around the screen. Instead of the mouse,
outSPOKEN uses a set of keyboard commands to manipulate
the pointer (Section 4.1).
As a final note, the pointer is not always shaped like
an arrow. It often changes its shape to give the user
information about what is currently being pointed to or
about the state of the entire system. For example, the
pointer changes from an arrow to an hourglass when the
system is busy computing or accessing the disk. At
other times, the pointer changes its shape to indicate
something about the object or area being pointed to.
When the pointer is placed over editable text, it
changes to resemble a vertical insertion bar to
indicate to the user that the area being pointed to can
be edited. There are many different pointer shapes in
Windows, and many applications have pointers of their
own. outSPOKEN announces the name of each new pointer
as it appears (Section 5.2).
3.2    Icons and Graphical Symbols
Icons are small pictures, usually with text labels
below them, representing files and applications.
Generally, they look like the object, or have the logo
of the thing they represent. For example, the "Write"
icon, representing a simple word processor shipped with
Microsoft Windows, looks like a fountain pen. The
"Clock" icon, representing a program which displays the
time and date, looks just like an analog clock.
Within an application, functions such as tab and margin
settings are often represented by graphics which
outSPOKEN calls symbols. The distinction between a
symbol and an icon is one of size. An icon is defined
by outSPOKEN to be a graphic thirty-two pixels square
or larger, while a symbol is any graphic smaller than
that. Symbols do not normally include text labels.
Symbols frequently represent controls or settings. For
example, many word processors have "Tool Bars," which
are rows of symbols shown above the document. When
clicked on, these symbols perform operations such as
double-spacing the document, bringing up a spell
checker, sorting lists, or changing fonts.
outSPOKEN keeps track of all the graphics on the screen
and has a name for each one. The Write icon is named
"Write," the Clock icon is named "Clock," etc. Whenever
outSPOKEN encounters a graphic that it has no name for,
it assigns a unique number to it. This enables the
outSPOKEN user to distinguish one icon from another,
even before they have been named. When the user names
an icon (Section 5.2), outSPOKEN remembers that name
until the name is changed. All other icons that are
identical in appearance will automatically acquire that
name as well.
3.3    Windows, Menus, and Dialogs
As the name "Windows" implies, all information
displayed by Microsoft Windows appears inside
rectangular bordered regions called windows. In this
section, we describe many of the different types of
windows used to display information.
A few concepts are common to all windows, and are
important to understand before others can be
introduced. The desktop is the workspace on the screen
on top of which windows are opened, closed, moved, and
resized. If no windows were shown on the screen, only
the desktop would be visible. It can be clean or
cluttered with many open windows. It is entirely a
matter of personal taste.
A window can be large or small, wide or narrow, tall or
short. Because of the many sizes and shapes of windows,
it is not unusual for some of them to overlap or even
cover other windows entirely. It may help to think of
windows as papers on a desk. You can have many papers
on your desk at once, and they can be stacked,
shuffled, arranged side-by-side, or filed away safely
in your file cabinet. It all depends on how you like to
work.
3.3.1    Windows in General
Although there are different types of windows, many
features are common between them. This section
describes the features of the "generic window." The
terms and concepts developed here are used in
explanations of more complicated concepts, such as
dialog boxes (Section 3.3.3) and customizing outSPOKEN
(Chapter 5).
3.3.1.1    The Title Bar
Most windows have a title bar associated with them. It
tells the user what is displayed in the window, and in
many ways is like the title of a book or a paper
document. The title bar gives you a name for that
window and a clue about its contents. Figure 2 shows a
generic window. It is a rectangular border containing,
among other things, a title bar. This window's title
bar reads "Title Bar," and it can be found in the
center of the top edge of the window.
In the title bar, and on either side of the actual
title, are several small symbols used for changing the
window's size and location on the screen. To the right
are two small boxes. The right-most box has an upward-
pointing arrow. This symbol is called the Maximize
button. Clicking on it will enlarge the window to fill
the entire screen. If the window is maximized, the
Maximize button will be replaced with a double-headed
arrow called the Restore button. Clicking on this
symbol will return your window to its previous smaller
state. The symbol shown in Figure 2 at the right end of
the title bar is the single-headed Maximize button. An
example of the Restore button can be found in the
upper-right corner of Figure 4.
The box immediately to the left of the Maximize button
has a downward-pointing arrow, and is called the
Minimize button. Clicking on this symbol causes the
window to shrink to the size of a large icon showing
only the title of the window. Double-clicking on this
iconized window will restore the window to its larger
size.
To the left of the title, you will find another small
box with a single horizontal line in it. This symbol is
called the Control menu. A single click on the Control
menu causes a menu to open, offering a number of
options for changing the window's size and shape
(Section 3.3.2).
3.3.1.2    The Menu Bar
Many windows include a Menu Bar. This is a row of menu
titles immediately below the title bar. In Figure 2,
the words in the menu bar read "File, Options, Windows,
Help." Each of these words represents a menu of
commands available to the user in this particular
window. Clicking on one of the menu titles causes a
menu to be displayed, as in Figure 3. For details about
using menus, see the section in this chapter called
"Menus" (Section 3.3.2). At this point we simply want
to introduce the concept of the menu bar and explain
that some windows have this feature. For more
explanations about which windows have menu bars and
which ones do not, see the last heading in this
section, called "Parent and Child Windows" (Section
3.3.1.4).
3.3.1.3    The Scroll Bar
A window frequently has room to display only a small
part of its total contents. This may happen, for
example, when viewing a large document in a word
processor. In this case, probably the first several
paragraphs can fit in a single window, but in order to
reveal the remainder of the document, the window must
be "scrolled down."
The scroll bar is a long, narrow object usually found
along the right edge of the window. In Figure 2, there
are two scroll bars: one on the right, and one along
the bottom. A scroll bar has arrows at either end
pointing in opposite directions. The vertical scroll
bar in Figure 2 has an upward-pointing arrow at its top
and a downward-pointing arrow at its bottom. To scroll
down, as in the above example, the user would click on
the downward-pointing arrow, and the next line of the
document would be revealed. To scroll up, the user
would click on the arrow at the top of the vertical
scroll bar. Pressing the PAGE UP and PAGE DOWN keys on
the keyboard also perform the functions of scrolling up
and down. The scroll bar is simply a graphical way of
doing the same thing.
Similar to the vertical scroll bar, the horizontal
scroll bar at the bottom of the window is used to
scroll the view to the left or right. If either the
vertical or the horizontal scroll bar is missing, that
means that there is nothing further to display in that
direction.
3.3.1.4    Parent and Child Windows
Microsoft Windows uses the concept of parent and child
windows to organize windows into logical groups. The
concept itself is quite simple: child windows are
contained within parent windows.
A parent window (or application window) can contain one
or more child windows (or document windows), and
usually has a menu bar, as well as a title bar. Any
commands available from the menu bar of the parent
window are available for use within its children. The
parent has Minimize, Maximize, and Control menu symbols
in its title bar (Section 3.3.1.1), and using them
affects the child windows. For example, if a parent
window is minimized, its child windows disappear, and
only the parent's minimized icon remains on the
desktop. The child windows re-appear along with the
parent when it is restored to its normal size.
Child windows do not have their own menu bars, but they
do have their own title bars. Each title bar has
Minimize, Maximize, and Control menu symbols. These
symbols control only the child window, and not the
parent. A child window can never go beyond its parent's
borders. A minimized child window stays inside the
parent window, and a maximized child window entirely
fills the parent window. If the parent is not maximized
to fill the entire screen, then the child window will
not fill the entire screen either, since a child window
cannot be larger than its parent.
Any application that you run_such as a word processor
or a spreadsheet_displays as a parent window, and will
therefore have its own menu and title bars. For this
reason, parent windows are frequently called
application windows. A document opened inside the word
processor or spreadsheet is displayed in a child window
inside the parent application's window. There can be
more than one child window within a parent window. They
can overlap, or cover one another entirely, within the
borders of their parent. Parent windows may also
overlap or cover each other.
3.3.2    Menus
We have discussed the menu bar already (Section
3.3.1.2), and will now explain more fully how menus are
used. Figure 3 shows a menu with six items. It has been
"pulled down" from the menu bar by clicking on one of
the menu titles. A menu title gives the user a clue as
to what type of commands the menu contains. For
example, the File menu usually contains commands
dealing with files, such as New File, Open File, and
Close File.
Once a menu is revealed, an option can be selected by
moving the pointer to the desired item and clicking.
The menu shown in Figure 3 is divided into three
sections. This is simply a graphical way of grouping
similar commands together.
Another feature frequently found in menus is the sub-
menu. A sub-menu is usually represented by a special
symbol to the right of the menu item. When selected, a
sub-menu pops up a new menu with further choices
related to the original entry. Occasionally, there are
also graphical check marks to the left of certain menu
items. A check mark indicates that a menu option is
currently chosen or selected. Selecting that item again
removes the check mark and turns the option off.
Each item in Figure 3 has a corresponding command on
the right. This illustrates that menu items often have
keyboard equivalents, or "shortcut keys," which can be
used to execute that command without using the menu.
Often, menus can also be opened using keyboard
shortcuts, as well as by clicking on the menu title.
These commands will vary from application to
application. For more information on shortcut keys, see
the section in Chapter 4 called "Using Built-in
Microsoft Windows Commands with outSPOKEN."
Please note that you can close a menu without
making a selection by pressing the ALT or ESC
keys. The menu then closes and the pointer
returns to the active window.
3.3.3    Dialog Boxes
A dialog box is a special kind of window that prompts
the user for information. Dialog boxes vary widely
depending on what kind of information they are
requesting. They can be extremely simple, with only one
or two controls, or they can be quite complex. Figure 6
shows an "Open" dialog box of the Windows text editor
Write. This dialog is used to select a document to be
opened by the editor. In the following sub-sections we
will refer to Figure 6, as well as to other common
features of dialog boxes.
3.3.3.1    Buttons
A button is a small rectangular object depicting a
push-button. It often contains a label describing the
action it performs when clicked on or "pressed." Many
dialog boxes have buttons labeled "OK" and "Cancel".
Clicking on the "OK" button tells the application that
you have finished supplying whatever information was
being requested, and that you wish to proceed with the
operation. Clicking on the "Cancel" button tells the
application that you do not wish to proceed; the dialog
is then closed, no other actions are performed, and any
changes made in the dialog are lost.
In Figure 6, there are two buttons, one above the
other, on the right-hand side of the dialog. The bottom
button is labeled "Cancel" and the one above it is
labeled "Open." Clicking on the "Open" button would
tell the application that you have finished specifying
the name of the file to be opened.
The buttons shown in the figure are "push buttons."
This means that when you click one of them, an action
is performed immediately. In this case, one button
performs the action of making the dialog go away
without opening a file (Cancel). The other accepts the
settings made in the other parts of the dialog and
performs the action of displaying the selected file in
a document window (Open).
Windows sometimes offers one of the buttons in a dialog
as the default button. This button is marked by a dark
border and is referred to by outSPOKEN as the "def
button." Pressing the oENTER key automatically selects
this button.
Another type of button (not shown in Figure 6) is the
radio button. Radio buttons come in groups, and only
one of them can be selected, or "on," at a time. They
are used in situations where the user has several,
mutually exclusive, options for a particular setting.
When a radio button is selected, the previously
selected one is automatically unselected. A radio
button which is "on" is indicated with a small solid
circle inside the button. These buttons allow the user
to view all the available options, as well as which one
is currently selected. The name "radio button" was
adopted from older analog car radios, and their style
of buttons for selecting pre-set stations.
Another type of button is called a check box. The check
box is simply a small square which can be checked or
unchecked by clicking in it. These are used in
situations where a feature is either on or off. When
the check box is checked, a graphical X mark appears in
the check box.
3.3.3.2    Combo Boxes
A combo box is similar in many ways to a menu (Section
3.3.2). It is a small rectangular box containing some
text on the left and a small symbol on the right,
called a combo button. Clicking on the symbol pops open
a menu. This menu, called a combo list box, may also
have a scroll bar on the right, allowing the user to
scroll the menu up or down to reveal more choices
(Section 3.3.1.3). Moving the pointer to one of the
menu options and clicking causes the menu to disappear
and displays the new selection in the text area of the
combo box.
Figure 6 shows two combo boxes in the bottom of the
dialog box. The one on the left has the heading "List
files of type" above it, and shows the setting of
"*.TXT". A single click in a combo box opens it to
reveal a list of choices. When this particular combo
box is opened, the resulting combo list box might
contain choices such as "*.*", "*.DOC", or "*.TXT".
These choices are all different types of files which
can be listed in the dialog box. When a selection is
made by clicking on a file type, the combo list box
closes back to a combo box and the new setting appears
in the combo box. The files shown in the list above
then change to reflect the file type selected. For
example, the setting shown in the File Type combo box
in this figure is "*.TXT". This means that only files
with the file extension .TXT will be displayed in the
file list.
The combo box on the right has the label "Drive" and
shows the setting "C:\". The setting of this control
determines which disk drive will have its directories
and files displayed in the lists above. This combo
box's combo list box could contain such choices as A:\,
B:\, and C:\. In Figure 6, the current setting is C:\,
as is shown in the combo box. This means that the files
and directories listed above would be found on the C
drive.
3.3.3.3    Edit Boxes
An edit box is a field in a dialog into which the user
can type text. In Figure 6, the edit box is labeled
"File Name" and is located in the upper left corner of
the dialog box. As the label implies, the user can type
a file name into this field. Simple editing commands
such as clicking, backspacing, and highlighting
(Section 3.1) are available in edit boxes. Edit boxes
are used in many situations where the user is prompted
to enter a name, number, or other item.
3.3.3.4    Group Boxes
A group box is not really a control, like a button or
an edit box. A group box is a way of grouping sets of
controls together within a dialog box. If several
controls all operate on a single parameter, it makes
sense to enclose them in a group box with a
corresponding label. For example, a group of radio
buttons (Section 3.3.3.1) labeled "Too Hot," "Too
Cold," and "Just Right" might be contained in a group
box titled "Porridge Temperature."
3.3.3.5    List Boxes
A list box is a common way of displaying a set of
choices in a dialog. It is scrollable (Section 3.3.1.3)
to accommodate long lists. In Figure 6, there are two
list boxes: one on the left, listing files, and another
to the right, listing directories.
Clicking on an item in a list box highlights it
(Section 3.1), indicating that it is the currently
selected item in the list. In Figure 6, there are three
file names shown in the left-hand list box. Clicking on
any of these file names would highlight it. Pressing
the Open button would then open that file in a document
window. Similarly, a click on an item in the list box
that displays directories would highlight the directory
that was clicked on. After having highlighted a
directory, clicking on the Open button would cause the
file names in that directory to be displayed in the
other list box.
Double-clicking on an item in a list box is the same as
selecting it and clicking on the "Open" button (Section
3.1). For example, a double-click on File#1 would have
the same effect as highlighting it with a single click
and then pressing the Open button. Double-clicking on
an entry in the Directories list box would open that
directory, causing the names of its files to be
displayed in the list box on the left.