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59-501: OPEN LOOK was created at a time when there was little or no standardization in Unix graphical user interfaces (GUIs); the X Window System was emerging as the likely de facto standard for Unix graphical displays, but its designers had deliberately chosen not to specify any look and feel guidelines, leaving this up to application and window manager developers. At the same time, there was increasing use of GUIs in non-UNIX operating systems:

118-474: A GUI and some level of a CLI, although the GUIs usually receive more attention. GUI wrappers find a way around the command-line interface versions (CLI) of (typically) Linux and Unix-like software applications and their text-based UIs or typed command labels. While command-line or text-based applications allow users to run a program non-interactively, GUI wrappers atop them avoid the steep learning curve of

177-410: A combination of technologies and devices to provide a platform that users can interact with, for the tasks of gathering and producing information. A series of elements conforming a visual language have evolved to represent information stored in computers. This makes it easier for people with few computer skills to work with and use computer software. The most common combination of such elements in GUIs

236-508: A grid of items with rows of text extending sideways from the icon. Multi-row and multi-column layouts commonly found on the web are "shelf" and "waterfall". The former is found on image search engines , where images appear with a fixed height but variable length, and is typically implemented with the CSS property and parameter display: inline-block; . A waterfall layout found on Imgur and TweetDeck with fixed width but variable height per item

295-559: A lawsuit against Microsoft, claiming that Microsoft had copied the Macintosh look and feel. The OPEN LOOK specification was a collaboration between Sun and AT&T, who were then partnering in the development of SVR4. Xerox PARC was also credited for having not only done the pioneering work in the industry for graphical user interfaces, but also for contributing to OPEN LOOK's "design, review, implementation, testing, and refinement". Involving Xerox, including licensing technology from them,

354-506: A program was busy. Additionally, it was the first GUI to introduce something resembling Virtual Desktops . Windows 95 , accompanied by an extensive marketing campaign, was a major success in the marketplace at launch and shortly became the most popular desktop operating system. In 2007, with the iPhone and later in 2010 with the introduction of the iPad , Apple popularized the post-WIMP style of interaction for multi-touch screens, and those devices were considered to be milestones in

413-474: A retail store, airline self-ticket and check-in, information kiosks in a public space, like a train station or a museum, and monitors or control screens in an embedded industrial application which employ a real-time operating system (RTOS). Cell phones and handheld game systems also employ application specific touchscreen GUIs. Newer automobiles use GUIs in their navigation systems and multimedia centers, or navigation multimedia center combinations. A GUI uses

472-414: A short sequence of words and symbols. Custom functions may be used to facilitate access to frequent actions. Command-line interfaces are more lightweight , as they only recall information necessary for a task; for example, no preview thumbnails or graphical rendering of web pages. This allows greater efficiency and productivity once many commands are learned. But reaching this level takes some time because

531-428: A system or moved about to different places during redesigns. Also, icons and dialog boxes are usually harder for users to script. WIMPs extensively use modes , as the meaning of all keys and clicks on specific positions on the screen are redefined all the time. Command-line interfaces use modes only in limited forms, such as for current directory and environment variables . Most modern operating systems provide both

590-587: A truly unified Unix was necessary in order to better compete against Microsoft and had formed the Common Open Software Environment (COSE) initiative. The unified desktop for this initiative became the Common Desktop Environment (CDE), and the look and feel chosen for it was based on Motif. Sun announced its plans to immediately offer Motif and start retiring OpenWindows, by then the predominant implementation of

649-548: Is a definition of a look and feel rather than a specific implementation, so it could actually be implemented with different programming toolkits or even on different underlying window systems; implementations were created for both the X Window System and Sun's NeWS . Sun developed an X Window System distribution implementing the OPEN LOOK look and feel, calling it OpenWindows . Developers building OPEN LOOK applications could choose between two graphical programming libraries:

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708-674: Is a related technology that promises to deliver the representation benefits of 3D environments without their usability drawbacks of orientation problems and hidden objects. In 2006, Hillcrest Labs introduced the first ZUI for television. Other innovations include the menus on the PlayStation 2 , the menus on the Xbox , Sun's Project Looking Glass , Metisse , which was similar to Project Looking Glass, BumpTop , where users can manipulate documents and windows with realistic movement and physics as if they were physical documents, Croquet OS , which

767-404: Is built for collaboration, and compositing window managers such as Enlightenment and Compiz . Augmented reality and virtual reality also make use of 3D GUI elements. 3D GUIs have appeared in science fiction literature and films , even before certain technologies were feasible or in common use. Common Open Software Environment The Common Open Software Environment ( COSE )

826-417: Is especially common with applications designed for Unix-like operating systems. The latter used to be implemented first because it allowed the developers to focus exclusively on their product's functionality without bothering about interface details such as designing icons and placing buttons. Designing programs this way also allows users to run the program in a shell script . Many environments and games use

885-568: Is now known as the Single Unix Specification . Spec 1170 (no relation to the SPEC benchmarking organization) was named after the results of the first COSE effort to determine which Unix interfaces were actually in use; inspection of a large sample of current Unix applications uncovered 1,170 such system and library calls. As might be expected, the actual number of interfaces cataloged continued to grow over time. Management of

944-669: Is represented by rotating a cube with faces representing each user's workspace, and window management is represented via a Rolodex -style flipping mechanism in Windows Vista (see Windows Flip 3D ). In both cases, the operating system transforms windows on-the-fly while continuing to update the content of those windows. The GUI is usually WIMP-based, although occasionally other metaphors surface, such as those used in Microsoft Bob , 3dwm, File System Navigator, File System Visualizer , 3D Mailbox, and GopherVR . Zooming (ZUI)

1003-440: Is the windows, icons, text fields, canvases, menus, pointer ( WIMP ) paradigm, especially in personal computers . The WIMP style of interaction uses a virtual input device to represent the position of a pointing device's interface , most often a mouse , and presents information organized in windows and represented with icons . Available commands are compiled together in menus, and actions are performed making gestures with

1062-555: Is usually implemented by specifying column-width: . Smaller app mobile devices such as personal digital assistants (PDAs) and smartphones typically use the WIMP elements with different unifying metaphors, due to constraints in space and available input devices. Applications for which WIMP is not well suited may use newer interaction techniques , collectively termed post-WIMP UIs. As of 2011, some touchscreen-based operating systems such as Apple's iOS ( iPhone ) and Android use

1121-583: The Apple Macintosh was released in early 1984, followed by Microsoft Windows 1.0 and Amiga Workbench in 1985. As AT&T contemplated its next major revision to Unix, which would eventually become SVR4 , it was believed by many that in order to remain competitive with other operating systems, Unix should have a standard GUI definition. One other concern of the time was legal exposure surrounding intellectual property : in March 1988, Apple filed

1180-645: The Xerox Star . These early systems spurred many other GUI efforts, including Lisp machines by Symbolics and other manufacturers, the Apple Lisa (which presented the concept of menu bar and window controls ) in 1983, the Apple Macintosh 128K in 1984, and the Atari ST with Digital Research 's GEM , and Commodore Amiga in 1985. Visi On was released in 1983 for the IBM PC compatible computers, but

1239-501: The cursor (or rather pointer ) control: mouse , pointing stick , touchpad , trackball , joystick , virtual keyboards , and head-up displays (translucent information devices at the eye level). There are also actions performed by programs that affect the GUI. For example, there are components like inotify or D-Bus to facilitate communication between computer programs. Ivan Sutherland developed Sketchpad in 1963, widely held as

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1298-627: The 1970s, Engelbart's ideas were further refined and extended to graphics by researchers at Xerox PARC and specifically Alan Kay , who went beyond text-based hyperlinks and used a GUI as the main interface for the Smalltalk programming language , which ran on the Xerox Alto computer , released in 1973. Most modern general-purpose GUIs are derived from this system. The Xerox PARC GUI consisted of graphical elements such as windows , menus , radio buttons , and check boxes . The concept of icons

1357-481: The COSE process was the creation of a universally-recognized single UNIX standard and an independent organization to administer it. It marked the end of Sun's OPEN LOOK graphical environment in favor of a Motif -based desktop, at the same time making the latter a standard rather than a proprietary toolkit. Although it had less impact on the other standardization areas it originally intended to address, it nonetheless had

1416-513: The GUIs advantages, many reviewers questioned the value of the entire concept, citing hardware limits, and problems in finding compatible software. In 1984, Apple released a television commercial which introduced the Apple Macintosh during the telecast of Super Bowl XVIII by CBS , with allusions to George Orwell 's noted novel Nineteen Eighty-Four . The goal of the commercial was to make people think about computers, identifying

1475-519: The OLIT API, but allowed users to choose which GUI they wanted at run time. The source to MoOLIT was licensed by MJM Software, who ported it to several other Unix platforms. It was used for several years, almost exclusively by AT&T and Lucent Technologies , who wanted to give their existing OPEN LOOK applications a Motif look and feel. It was not widely used elsewhere. By June 1993, the major UNIX players, including AT&T and Sun, had decided that

1534-721: The OPEN LOOK DeskSet tools, as well as compile OPEN LOOK applications; "openlook" is based on OpenWindows code released as open source, but has added additional components that were not open sourced by Sun. Graphical user interface A graphical user interface , or GUI ( / ˈ ɡ uː i / GOO -ee ), is a form of user interface that allows users to interact with electronic devices through graphical icons and visual indicators such as secondary notation . In many applications, GUIs are used instead of text-based UIs , which are based on typed command labels or text navigation. GUIs were introduced in reaction to

1593-611: The OPEN LOOK Intrinsics Toolkit ( OLIT ) or XView . The former was built on the Xt Intrinsics toolkit common to X; the latter used the same programming interface paradigm as the GUI libraries for Sun's earlier SunView window system, making it relatively easy for developers to migrate applications from SunView to X. There was also The NeWS Toolkit, or TNT, which as the name implies implemented OPEN LOOK for NeWS applications; support for NeWS applications

1652-484: The OPEN LOOK look and feel. Sun began by offering the Motif developer toolkit and MWM window manager as a standalone product for use with Solaris until CDE was released in 1995. OpenWindows remained the primary Solaris desktop environment until 1997, when CDE became the primary desktop for Solaris 2.6. Even then, OpenWindows was still included with Solaris and could continue to be used instead of CDE. When Solaris 9

1711-401: The class of GUIs named post-WIMP. These support styles of interaction using more than one finger in contact with a display, which allows actions such as pinching and rotating, which are unsupported by one pointer and mouse. Human interface devices , for the efficient interaction with a GUI include a computer keyboard , especially used together with keyboard shortcuts , pointing devices for

1770-457: The command words may not be easily discoverable or mnemonic . Also, using the command line can become slow and error-prone when users must enter long commands comprising many parameters or several different filenames at once. However, windows, icons, menus, pointer ( WIMP ) interfaces present users with many widgets that represent and can trigger some of the system's available commands. GUIs can be made quite hard when dialogs are buried deep in

1829-413: The command-line, which requires commands to be typed on the keyboard . By starting a GUI wrapper, users can intuitively interact with, start, stop, and change its working parameters, through graphical icons and visual indicators of a desktop environment , for example. Applications may also provide both interfaces, and when they do the GUI is usually a WIMP wrapper around the command-line version. This

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1888-571: The designer's work to change the interface as user needs evolve. Good GUI design relates to users more, and to system architecture less. Large widgets, such as windows , usually provide a frame or container for the main presentation content such as a web page, email message, or drawing. Smaller ones usually act as a user-input tool. A GUI may be designed for the requirements of a vertical market as application-specific GUIs. Examples include automated teller machines (ATM), point of sale (POS) touchscreens at restaurants, self-service checkouts used in

1947-485: The development of mobile devices . The GUIs familiar to most people as of the mid-late 2010s are Microsoft Windows , macOS , and the X Window System interfaces for desktop and laptop computers, and Android , Apple's iOS , Symbian , BlackBerry OS , Windows Phone / Windows 10 Mobile , Tizen , WebOS , and Firefox OS for handheld ( smartphone ) devices. Since the commands available in command line interfaces can be many, complex operations can be performed using

2006-435: The display represents a desktop, on which documents and folders of documents can be placed. Window managers and other software combine to simulate the desktop environment with varying degrees of realism. Entries may appear in a list to make space for text and details, or in a grid for compactness and larger icons with little space underneath for text. Variations in between exist, such as a list with multiple columns of items and

2065-611: The first graphical computer-aided design program. It used a light pen to create and manipulate objects in engineering drawings in realtime with coordinated graphics. In the late 1960s, researchers at the Stanford Research Institute , led by Douglas Engelbart , developed the On-Line System (NLS), which used text-based hyperlinks manipulated with a then-new device: the mouse . (A 1968 demonstration of NLS became known as " The Mother of All Demos ".) In

2124-470: The individual companies. In March 1994 UI and OSF announced their merger into a new organization, which retained the OSF name. The COSE initiative became the basis of the new OSF's "Pre-Structured Technology" (PST) process. These efforts in turn eventually became the responsibility of The Open Group , an entity formed by the merger of the new OSF and X/Open in 1996. In the end, the most significant product of

2183-485: The interface found in current versions of Microsoft Windows, and in various desktop environments for Unix-like operating systems , such as macOS and Linux . Thus most current GUIs have largely common idioms. GUIs were a hot topic in the early 1980s. The Apple Lisa was released in 1983, and various windowing systems existed for DOS operating systems (including PC GEM and PC/GEOS ). Individual applications for many platforms presented their own GUI variants. Despite

2242-413: The kind of data they hold. The widgets of a well-designed interface are selected to support the actions necessary to achieve the goals of users. A model–view–controller allows flexible structures in which the interface is independent of and indirectly linked to application functions, so the GUI can be customized easily. This allows users to select or design a different skin or theme at will, and eases

2301-461: The late 1980s and early 1990s, the OSF and Unix International (UI). Notable in its absence was OSF co-founder Digital Equipment Corporation ; Digital did finally announce its endorsement of the COSE process the following June. COSE's announced areas of focus were: a common desktop environment; networking; graphics; multimedia; object-based technology; and, systems management. On September 1, 1993 it

2360-435: The methods of 3D graphics to project 3D GUI objects onto the screen. The use of 3D graphics has become increasingly common in mainstream operating systems (ex. Windows Aero , and Aqua (MacOS)) to create attractive interfaces, termed eye candy (which includes, for example, the use of drop shadows underneath windows and the cursor ), or for functional purposes only possible using three dimensions. For example, user switching

2419-539: The opening and standardization of the UNIX brand, the most notable product of the COSE initiative was the Common Desktop Environment , or CDE. CDE was an X11 -based user environment jointly developed by HP, IBM, and Sun, with an interface and productivity tools based on OSF's Motif graphical widget toolkit . Although in the areas of desktop and the OS itself the COSE process was one of unification, in other announced areas, it

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2478-680: The perceived steep learning curve of command-line interfaces (CLIs), which require commands to be typed on a computer keyboard . The actions in a GUI are usually performed through direct manipulation of the graphical elements. Beyond computers, GUIs are used in many handheld mobile devices such as MP3 players, portable media players, gaming devices, smartphones and smaller household, office and industrial controls . The term GUI tends not to be applied to other lower- display resolution types of interfaces , such as video games (where head-up displays ( HUDs ) are preferred), or not including flat screens like volumetric displays because

2537-403: The pointing device. A window manager facilitates the interactions between windows, applications , and the windowing system . The windowing system handles hardware devices such as pointing devices, graphics hardware, and positioning of the pointer. In personal computers , all these elements are modeled through a desktop metaphor to produce a simulation called a desktop environment in which

2596-414: The specification was given to X/Open . In October 1993, it was announced that the UNIX trademark, which was at that time owned by Novell, would be transferred to X/Open. These developments meant that the UNIX brand was no longer tied to one source code implementation; any company could now create an OS version compliant with the UNIX specification, which would then be eligible for the UNIX brand. Besides

2655-517: The system never reached commercial production. The first commercially available computer with a GUI was the 1979 PERQ workstation , manufactured by Three Rivers Computer Corporation. Its design was heavily influenced by the work at Xerox PARC. In 1981, Xerox eventually commercialized the ideas from the Alto in the form of a new and enhanced system – the Xerox 8010 Information System – more commonly known as

2714-505: The term is restricted to the scope of 2D display screens able to describe generic information, in the tradition of the computer science research at the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center . Designing the visual composition and temporal behavior of a GUI is an important part of software application programming in the area of human–computer interaction . Its goal is to enhance the efficiency and ease of use for

2773-456: The underlying logical design of a stored program , a design discipline named usability . Methods of user-centered design are used to ensure that the visual language introduced in the design is well-tailored to the tasks. The visible graphical interface features of an application are sometimes referred to as chrome or GUI . Typically, users interact with information by manipulating visual widgets that allow for interactions appropriate to

2832-402: The user to make dialog boxes and palettes stay visible. The overall philosophy was to provide a clean, simple and uncluttered interface, so that the user's focus would be on the application rather than the interface. In fact, the original OPEN LOOK design was black and white only; a "three-dimensional" look and feel with shading was added later, in response to the 3-D style effects in Motif. It

2891-470: The user-friendly interface as a personal computer which departed from prior business-oriented systems, and becoming a signature representation of Apple products. In 1985, Commodore released the Amiga 1000 , along with Workbench and Kickstart 1.0 (which contained Intuition ). This interface ran as a separate task, meaning it was very responsive and, unlike other GUIs of the time, it didn't freeze up when

2950-428: Was also announced that the COSE vendors were developing a unified Unix specification with the support of over 75 companies. Unlike OSF or UI, the COSE initiative was not tasked to create or promote a single operating system. Their approach was to instead survey and document the OS interfaces already in use by Unix software vendors of the time. This resulting list, originally known as "Spec 1170", evolved to become what

3009-447: Was an initiative formed in March 1993 by the major Unix vendors of the time to create open, unified operating system (OS) standards. The COSE process was established during a time when the " Unix wars " had become an impediment to the growth of Unix. Microsoft , already dominant on the corporate desktop, was beginning to make a bid for two Unix strongholds: technical workstations and the enterprise data center . In addition, Novell

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3068-410: Was decided to endorse existing technologies from both camps rather than pick one. For example, the announced direction for networking was for all participants to sell, deliver and support OSF's DCE , UI's ONC+ , and a NetWare client. Other areas were addressed in very broad terms. For object-based technology, CORBA was called out as the underlying technology, but method of implementation was left to

3127-666: Was felt to serve as protection from any future legal entanglements. The specification was announced in April 1988. The following month, a group of competitors to AT&T and Sun formed the Open Software Foundation (OSF), as a counter to their collaborative efforts. The OSF created the Motif GUI as its alternative to OPEN LOOK. OPEN LOOK is distinguished by its obround buttons, triangle glyphs to indicate pull-down and pull-right menus, and "pushpins" which allowed

3186-399: Was later introduced by David Canfield Smith , who had written a thesis on the subject under the guidance of Kay. The PARC GUI employs a pointing device along with a keyboard. These aspects can be emphasized by using the alternative term and acronym for windows, icons, menus, pointing device ( WIMP ). This effort culminated in the 1973 Xerox Alto , the first computer with a GUI, though

3245-410: Was more oriented toward making standards of existing technologies than creating new offerings from scratch. The initial members, (known as "The Big Six" or "SUUSHI"), were: These represented the significant Unix system and OS vendors of the time, as well as the holders of the Unix brand and AT&T-derived source code. They also represented almost all the key players in the two major Unix factions of

3304-588: Was never popular due to its high hardware demands. Nevertheless, it was a crucial influence on the contemporary development of Microsoft Windows . Apple, Digital Research, IBM and Microsoft used many of Xerox's ideas to develop products, and IBM's Common User Access specifications formed the basis of the GUIs used in Microsoft Windows, IBM OS/2 Presentation Manager , and the Unix Motif toolkit and window manager . These ideas evolved to create

3363-611: Was released in 2002, development support for XView and OLIT-based applications was finally removed, as were the olwm window manager and the OPEN LOOK versions of the DeskSet productivity tools. Applications already developed using XView and OLIT can still be executed and displayed in both Solaris 9 and 10, but are no longer supported as native applications in Solaris 11. There are at least two projects continuing development of OPEN LOOK software: "OWAcomp" makes it possible to still use

3422-478: Was removed from OpenWindows in 1993. In 1990, Unix System Laboratories (USL) inherited OLIT from AT&T along with UNIX . Not long after, the codebase for OLIT diverged as Sun and USL took its development in different directions. Sun continued to enhance its version to make its look and feel more consistent with XView. USL, in an attempt to create an API to make applications GUI independent, developed MoOLIT (from Motif OPEN LOOK Intrinsics Toolkit), which kept

3481-435: Was seeing its NetWare installed base steadily eroding in favor of Microsoft-based networks; as part of a multi-faceted approach to battling Microsoft, they had turned to Unix as a weapon , having recently formed a Unix-related partnership with AT&T known as Univel . Unlike other Unix unification efforts that preceded it, COSE was notable in two ways: it was not formed in opposition to another set of Unix vendors, and it

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