Windowing system
Encyclopedia
Graphical user interface
In computing, a graphical user interface is a type of user interface that allows users to interact with electronic devices with images rather than text commands. GUIs can be used in computers, hand-held devices such as MP3 players, portable media players or gaming devices, household appliances and...
(GUI), and more specifically of a desktop environment
Desktop environment
In graphical computing, a desktop environment commonly refers to a style of graphical user interface derived from the desktop metaphor that is seen on most modern personal computers. These GUIs help the user in easily accessing, configuring, and modifying many important and frequently accessed...
, which supports the implementation of window manager
Window manager
A window manager is system software that controls the placement and appearance of windows within a windowing system in a graphical user interface. Most window managers are designed to help provide a desktop environment...
s, and provides basic support for graphics hardware, pointing devices such as mice, and keyboards. The mouse cursor is also generally drawn by the windowing system.
The term windowing system is sometimes used to refer to other elements of a graphical interface such as those belonging to window managers or even applications. While on some operating systems the distinction between applications, window managers, and their supporting technologies are blurred, strictly speaking, a windowing system does not include windows themselves.
From a programmer
Programmer
A programmer, computer programmer or coder is someone who writes computer software. The term computer programmer can refer to a specialist in one area of computer programming or to a generalist who writes code for many kinds of software. One who practices or professes a formal approach to...
's point of view, a windowing system implements graphical primitives such as rendering fonts
Typeface
In typography, a typeface is the artistic representation or interpretation of characters; it is the way the type looks. Each type is designed and there are thousands of different typefaces in existence, with new ones being developed constantly....
or drawing a line on the screen, effectively providing an abstraction of the graphics hardware from higher level elements of the graphical interface like window managers.
A windowing system enables the computer user to work with several programs at the same time. Each program runs in its own window, which is generally a rectangular area of the screen. Most windowing systems have basic support of re-parenting which allows windows to overlap, however the ways in which windows interact is usually controlled by the window manager.
Some windowing systems, like the X Window System
X Window System
The X window system is a computer software system and network protocol that provides a basis for graphical user interfaces and rich input device capability for networked computers...
, have advanced capabilities such as network transparency
Network transparency
Network transparency in its most general sense refers to the ability of a protocol to transmit data over the network in a manner which is transparent to those using the applications that are using the protocol....
, allowing the user to display graphical applications running on a remote machine
Remote computer
A remote computer is a computer to which a user does not have physical access, but which he or she can access or manipulate via some kind of network....
. The X Window System takes a strictly layered approach, and does not implement any specific policy regarding the look and feel of the graphical user interfaces, and their behaviour, leaving that to the X window manager
X window manager
An X window manager is a window manager which runs on top of the X Window System, a windowing system mainly used on Unix-like systems.Unlike the Mac OS and Microsoft Windows platforms which have historically provided a vendor-controlled, fixed set of ways to control how windows and panes display...
s, widget toolkit
Widget toolkit
In computing, a widget toolkit, widget library, or GUI toolkit is a set of widgets for use in designing applications with graphical user interfaces...
s and desktop environment
Desktop environment
In graphical computing, a desktop environment commonly refers to a style of graphical user interface derived from the desktop metaphor that is seen on most modern personal computers. These GUIs help the user in easily accessing, configuring, and modifying many important and frequently accessed...
s.
For Unix-likeUnix-likeA Unix-like operating system is one that behaves in a manner similar to a Unix system, while not necessarily conforming to or being certified to any version of the Single UNIX Specification....
operating systems
- 8½8½ (Plan 9)8½ is a window system developed for the Plan 9 from Bell Labs operating system by Rob Pike. According to its documentation, the system has little graphical fanciness, a fixed user interface, and depends on a three-button mouse...
and rio for Plan 9Plan 9 from Bell LabsPlan 9 from Bell Labs is a distributed operating system. It was developed primarily for research purposes as the successor to Unix by the Computing Sciences Research Center at Bell Labs between the mid-1980s and 2002... - Fresco/Berlin
- FramebufferUI (fbui) in-kernel windowing system
- HP Windows
- ManaGeRManaGeRManaGeR or MGR was an early windowing system originally designed and developed for Sun computers in 1984 by Stephen A. Uhler, then at Bellcore....
(MGR) - MetisseMetisseMetisse is a 2.5D windowing system, based on the X Window System. Metisse is available as a window manager for at least Mandriva One 2007, PCLinuxOS 2007 , Sabayon Linux, and Arch Linux. It has many features that set it apart from the traditional 3D "Cube workspace"...
- MicroXwinMicroXwinMicroXwin is a windowing system similar to the X Window System . By a different architecture, it provides a faster graphical user interface backend than the original X Window System, while still preserving the compatibility with standard X11 applications...
- NeWSNeWSNeWS was a windowing system developed by Sun Microsystems in the mid 1980s. Originally known as "SunDew", its primary authors were James Gosling and David S. H. Rosenthal...
/ OpenWindowsOpenWindowsOpenWindows was a desktop environment for Sun Microsystems workstations which handled SunView, NeWS, and X Window System protocols. OpenWindows was included in later releases of the operating systems SunOS 4 and Solaris, until its removal in Solaris 9 in favor of Common Desktop Environment and... - NeXT DPSNEXTSTEPNeXTSTEP was the object-oriented, multitasking operating system developed by NeXT Computer to run on its range of proprietary workstation computers, such as the NeXTcube...
- Qt Extended
- Quartz CompositorQuartz CompositorQuartz Compositor is the windowing system in Mac OS X. It is responsible for presenting and maintaining rasterized, rendered graphics from the rest of the Core Graphics framework and other renderers in the Quartz technologies family...
(Mac OS XMac OS XMac OS X is a series of Unix-based operating systems and graphical user interfaces developed, marketed, and sold by Apple Inc. Since 2002, has been included with all new Macintosh computer systems...
) - SunViewSunViewSunView was a windowing system from Sun Microsystems developed in the early 1980s. It was included as part of SunOS, Sun's UNIX implementation; unlike later UNIX windowing systems, much of it was implemented in the system kernel...
- TwinTwin (windowing system)Twin is a windowing environment with mouse support, window manager, terminal emulator and networked clients, all inside a text mode display.Twin supports a variety of displays:...
(Text WINdows) - W Window SystemW Window SystemThe W window system is a windowing system and precursor in name and concept to the modern X window system.W was originally developed at Stanford University by Paul Asente and Brian Reid for the V operating system...
- WaylandWayland (display server)Wayland is a display server protocol for the Unix-like operating systems and a library for Linux implementing that protocol.Wayland provides a method for compositing window managers to communicate directly with applications and to communicate directly with video and input hardware...
- X Window SystemX Window SystemThe X window system is a computer software system and network protocol that provides a basis for graphical user interfaces and rich input device capability for networked computers...
- XynthXynthXynth is an embedded windowing system, released under LGPL, developed for systems with low resources, is an alternative for X Window System.The goal of the project is to release a soft but portable and powered Window Environment.The source language is C....
- XFastXFastXFast is a lightweight desktop environment that incorporates a display manager and a window manager within the same process. It is portable and works on many devices...
- Y Window SystemY Window SystemThe Y Window System is a windowing system, consisting of a window server and a client library for writing applications. It was written by Mark Thomas as the subject of his Master's thesis at Imperial College, London. It is intended to be a successor to the X Window System, hence the name...
WebWorld Wide WebThe World Wide Web is a system of interlinked hypertext documents accessed via the Internet...
windowing systems
- DojoDojo ToolkitDojo Toolkit is an open source modular JavaScript library designed to ease the rapid development of cross-platform, JavaScript/Ajax-based applications and web sites. It was started by Alex Russell, Dylan Schiemann, David Schontzler, and others in 2004 and is dual-licensed under the modified BSD...
- ExtJSExt (javascript library)Ext JS is a JavaScript library for building interactive web applications using techniques such as Ajax, DHTML and DOM scripting.Originally built as an add-on library extension of YUI by Jack Slocum, Ext includes interoperability with jQuery and Prototype...
- TIBCOTibco SoftwareTIBCO Software Inc. is a provider of infrastructure software for companies to use on-premise or as part of cloud computing environments. TIBCO manages information, decisions, processes and applications in real-time for over 4,000 customers worldwide...
General Interface - Web Window ManagerWebwmWebWM is a web window manager API in PHP, which helps developers to create and manage dynamic windows inside their web applications.The whole window framework uses JavaScript making it light and versatile ....
Other
- DM
- GEMGraphical Environment ManagerGEM was a windowing system created by Digital Research, Inc. for use with the CP/M operating system on the Intel 8088 and Motorola 68000 microprocessors...
- OPIE
- IntuitionIntuition (Amiga)Intuition is the windowing system and user interface engine of AmigaOS. It was developed almost entirely by RJ Mical. Intuition should not be confused with Workbench, the AmigaOS spatial file manager, which relies on Intuition for handling windows and input events.Users may remember the initial...
- MicrowindowsMicrowindowsMicrowindows is a windowing system which is full featured enough to be used on a PC or a PDA. The Nano-X Window System is an Open Source project aimed at bringing the features of modern graphical windowing environments to smaller devices and platforms...
- MiniGUIMiniGUIMiniGUI is a GUI system with support for real-time and embedded operating systems, and aims to be fast, stable, light-weight and cross-platform. It was first released under the GNU GPL in 1999, and has since offered a commercial version with more features, including support for operating systems...
- OOHG
Operating systems such as Microsoft Windows
Microsoft Windows
Microsoft Windows is a series of operating systems produced by Microsoft.Microsoft introduced an operating environment named Windows on November 20, 1985 as an add-on to MS-DOS in response to the growing interest in graphical user interfaces . Microsoft Windows came to dominate the world's personal...
, Mac OS (version 9
Mac OS 9
Mac OS 9 is the final major release of Apple's Mac OS before the launch of Mac OS X. Introduced on October 23, 1999, Apple positioned it as "The Best Internet Operating System Ever," highlighting Sherlock 2's Internet search capabilities, integration with Apple's free online services known as...
and earlier), and Palm OS
Palm OS
Palm OS is a mobile operating system initially developed by Palm, Inc., for personal digital assistants in 1996. Palm OS is designed for ease of use with a touchscreen-based graphical user interface. It is provided with a suite of basic applications for personal information management...
, contain a windowing system which is integrated with the OS.
See also
- History of the graphical user interfaceHistory of the graphical user interfaceThe graphical user interface, understood as the use of graphic icons and a pointing device to control a computer, has a four decade history of incremental refinements built on some constant core principles...
- Widget toolkitWidget toolkitIn computing, a widget toolkit, widget library, or GUI toolkit is a set of widgets for use in designing applications with graphical user interfaces...
- Desktop environmentDesktop environmentIn graphical computing, a desktop environment commonly refers to a style of graphical user interface derived from the desktop metaphor that is seen on most modern personal computers. These GUIs help the user in easily accessing, configuring, and modifying many important and frequently accessed...