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81-774: The Windows shell is the graphical user interface for the Microsoft Windows operating system. Its readily identifiable elements consist of the desktop, the taskbar, the Start menu , the task switcher and the AutoPlay feature. On some versions of Windows, it also includes Flip 3D and the charms. In Windows 10 , the Windows Shell Experience Host interface drives visuals like the Start Menu, Action Center, Taskbar, and Task View/Timeline. However,

162-474: 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

243-410: 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

324-470: A form of Start menu , usually by this very same name. Depending on the version of Windows, the menu features the following: AutoPlay is a feature introduced in Windows XP that examines newly inserted removable media for content and displays a dialog containing options related to the type and content of that media. The possible choices are provided by installed software: it is thus not to be confused with

405-508: 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

486-512: A list of programs already running so one could switch between them. Windows 1.0 , shipped in November 1985, introduced MS-DOS Executive, a simple file manager that differentiated between files and folders by bold type. It lacked support for icons, although this made the program somewhat faster than the file manager that came with Windows 3.0 . Programs could be launched by double-clicking on them. Files could be filtered for executable type, or by

567-506: 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

648-474: 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

729-564: A screen and select or highlight objects on the screen. In GUIs where the input method relies on hard keys, such as the five-way key on many mobile phones , there is no pointer employed, and instead, the GUI relies on a clear focus state. The pointer echoes movements of the pointing device , commonly a mouse , touchpad or trackball . This kind of pointer is used to manipulate elements of graphical user interfaces such as menus, buttons , scrollbars or any other widget . The pointer hotspot

810-489: A search pane in Explorer. Windows XP introduced a new Start Menu, with shortcuts to shell locations on the right and a list of most frequently used applications on the left. It also grouped taskbar buttons from the same program if the taskbar got too crowded, and hid notification icons if they had not been used for a while. For the first time, Windows XP hid most of the shell folders from the desktop by default, leaving only

891-628: A searchable Start menu and live taskbar previews to the Windows shell. It also introduced a redesigned Alt-Tab switcher which included live previews, and Flip 3D , an application switcher that would rotate through application windows in a fashion similar to a Rolodex when the user pressed the Win-Tab key combination. Windows 7 added 'pinned' shortcuts and 'jump lists' to the taskbar, and automatically grouped program windows into one icon (although this could be disabled). Windows Server 2008 introduced

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972-414: 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

1053-756: A single window, in order to show off Microsoft's new Multiple Document Interface. Program Manager in Windows 3.1 introduced wrappable icon titles, along with the new Startup group, which Program Manager would check on launch and start any programs contained within. Program Manager was also ported to Windows NT 3.1 , and was retained through Windows NT 3.51 . Windows 95 introduced a new shell. The desktop became an interactive area that could contain files (including file shortcuts ), folders, and special folders such as My Computer , Network Neighborhood and Recycle Bin . Windows Explorer , which replaced File Manager , opened both ordinary and special folders. The taskbar

1134-448: A small left-pointing or right-pointing appendage is for indicating the direction of text flow on systems that support bi-directional text , and is thus usually known among programmers as a 'bidi cursor'. In some cases, the cursor may split into two parts, each indicating where left-to-right and right-to-left text would be inserted. In computing , a pointer or mouse pointer (as part of a personal computer WIMP style of interaction)

1215-428: 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

1296-512: A user-selected wildcard, and the display mode could be toggled between full and compact descriptions. The file date column was not Y2K compliant. Windows 2.0 made no significant change to MS-DOS Executive. Windows 3.0 , introduced in May 1990, shipped with a new shell called Program Manager. Based on Microsoft's work with OS/2 Desktop Manager, Program Manager sorted program shortcuts into groups. Unlike Desktop Manager, these groups were housed in

1377-674: 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

1458-411: Is a symbol or graphical image on the computer monitor or other display device that echoes movements of the pointing device , commonly a mouse , touchpad , or stylus pen. It signals the point where actions of the user take place. It can be used in text-based or graphical user interfaces to select and move other elements. The keyboard cursor may also be repositioned using the pointer. Though it

1539-412: 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. Mouse cursor In human–computer interaction , a cursor is an indicator used to show

1620-415: Is distinct from the text cursor, the mouse pointer is also being called a cursor or mouse cursor. The pointer commonly appears as an angled arrow (angled because historically that improved appearance on low-resolution screens ), but it can vary within different programs or operating systems . The use of a pointer is employed when the input method, or pointing device, is a device that can move fluidly across

1701-417: 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

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1782-507: Is included in the list and can be activated this way. Windows 7 introduced Aero Flip (renamed Windows Flip in Windows 8). When the user holds down the Alt key, Aero Flip causes only the contents of the selected window to be displayed. The remaining windows are replaced with transparent glass-like sheets that give an impression where the inactive window is located. Windows 8 introduced Metro-style apps , which did not appear when Alt + Tab ↹

1863-483: Is known today, is an evolution of what began with Windows 95 , released in 1995. It is intimately identified with File Explorer , a Windows component that can browse the whole shell namespace. Windows Desktop is a full-screen window rendered behind all other windows. It hosts the user's wallpaper and an array of computer icons representing: Windows Vista and Windows 7 (and the corresponding versions of Windows Server) allowed Windows Desktop Gadgets to appear on

1944-483: Is possible to navigate through these desktops using Ctrl+Win+Left or Right arrows, or by clicking on an icon in the taskbar, and creating them with Ctrl+Win+D. Win-Tab was repurposed to invoke an overview of all active windows and virtual desktops. Windows 10 also added Cortana to the Start menu, to provide interaction with the shell through vocal commands. Newer versions of Windows 10 include recent Microsoft Edge tabs in

2025-669: 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)

2106-440: 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

2187-420: Is the active pixel of the pointer, used to target a click or drag . The standard arrow pointer has the hotspot at the tip; otherwise, it is frequently in the center, though it may reside at any location in the pointer. In many GUIs, moving the pointer around the screen may reveal other screen hotspots as the pointer changes shape depending on the circumstances. For example: The I-beam pointer (also called

2268-613: Is typically used instead. In a typical text editing application , the cursor can be moved by pressing various keys. These include the four cursor keys , the Page Up and Page Down keys , the Home key , the End key , and various key combinations involving a modifier key such as the Control key . The position of the cursor also may be changed by moving the mouse pointer to a different location in

2349-555: 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

2430-466: The ⊞ Win key is placed in front of the others. This view is maintained while ⊞ Win key is held down. Tab ↹ and ⇧ Shift + Tab ↹ cycle through the open windows, so that the user can preview them. When the ⊞ Win key is released, the Flip 3D view is dismissed and the selected window comes to the front and into focus. Windows 8 added a bar containing a set of five shortcuts known as

2511-418: The explorer.exe executable, which is responsible for launching File Explorer, is also responsible for launching the taskbar, the Start menu and part of the desktop. However, the task switcher, the charms, or AutoPlay operate even when all instances of the explorer.exe process are closed, and other computer programs can still access the shell namespace without it. Initially called Windows Explorer, its name

Windows shell - Misplaced Pages Continue

2592-985: The My Documents shell folder. Future Windows releases, like Windows 95C (OSR 2.5) and Windows 98 , included Internet Explorer 4 and the features of the Windows Desktop Update already built in. Improvements were made in Windows 2000 and Windows ME , such as personalized menus, ability to drag and sort menu items, sort by name function in menus, cascading Start menu special folders, customizable toolbars for Explorer, auto-complete in Windows Explorer address bar and Run box, displaying comments in file shortcuts as tooltips, advanced file type association features, extensible columns in Details view (IColumnProvider interface), icon overlays, places bar in common dialogs, high-color notification area icons and

2673-584: The Windows Animated Cursor Remote Code Execution Vulnerability used a buffer overflow vulnerability to load malicious code via the animated cursor load routine of Windows. The idea of a cursor being used as a marker or insertion point for new data or transformations, such as rotation, can be extended to a 3D modeling environment. Blender , for instance, uses a 3D cursor to determine where operations such as placing meshes are to take place in

2754-709: 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

2835-452: 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

2916-503: The "charms", invoked by moving the mouse cursor into the top or bottom right-hand corners of the screen, or by swiping from the right edge of a compatible touchpad or touch screen. This feature was retained in 8.1. Windows 10 removed the charms and moved the commands associated with them into the system menu of each application. For users with touch screens, swiping from the right of the touch screen now shows Action Center . Starting with Windows 95, all versions of Windows feature

2997-627: 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

3078-473: The Alt-Tab menu, which can be disabled to only show open programs, as is the behavior in prior versions of the operating system. Windows supports the ability to replace the Windows shell with another program. A number of third party shells exist that can be used in place of the standard Windows shell. Graphical user interface The actions in a GUI are usually performed through direct manipulation of

3159-513: 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

3240-594: The I-cursor) is a cursor shaped like a serifed capital letter I . The purpose of this cursor is to indicate that the text beneath the cursor can be highlighted and sometimes inserted or changed. Pointer trails can be used to enhance its visibility during movement. Pointer trails are a feature of GUI operating systems to enhance the visibility of the pointer. Although disabled by default, pointer trails have been an option in every version of Microsoft Windows since Windows 3.1x . When pointer trails are active and

3321-640: The Recycle Bin (although the user could get them back if they desired). Windows XP also introduced numerous other shell enhancements . In the early days of the Longhorn project , an experimental sidebar, with plugins similar to taskbar plugins and a notifications history was built into the shell. However, when Longhorn was reset the integrated sidebar was discarded in favor of a separate executable file, sidebar.exe , which provided Web-enabled gadgets, thus replacing Active Desktop. Windows Vista introduced

Windows shell - Misplaced Pages Continue

3402-518: The Windows shell also implements a shell namespace that enables computer programs running on Windows to access the computer's resources via the hierarchy of shell objects. "Desktop" is the top object of the hierarchy; below it there are a number of files and folders stored on the disk, as well as a number of special folders whose contents are either virtual or dynamically created. Recycle Bin , Libraries , Control Panel , This PC and Network are examples of such shell objects. The Windows shell, as it

3483-401: 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

3564-457: 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

3645-413: 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

3726-723: The current position on a computer monitor or other display device that will respond to input, such as a text cursor or a mouse pointer. Cursor is Latin for 'runner'. A cursor is a name given to the transparent slide engraved with a hairline used to mark a point on a slide rule . The term was then transferred to computers through analogy. On 14 November 1963, while attending a conference on computer graphics in Reno, Nevada , Douglas Engelbart of Augmentation Research Center (ARC) first expressed his thoughts to pursue his objective of developing both hardware and software computer technology to augment human intelligence by pondering how to adapt

3807-571: 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

3888-420: The desktop. Windows taskbar is a toolbar -like element that, by default, appears as a horizontal bar at the bottom of the desktop. It may be relocated to the top, left or right edges of the screen. Starting with Windows 98 , its size can be changed. The taskbar can be configured to stay on top of all applications or to collapse and hide when it is not used. Depending on the version of operating system installed,

3969-485: 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

4050-435: 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

4131-476: The document and clicking. The blinking of the text cursor is usually temporarily suspended when it is being moved; otherwise, the cursor may change position when it is not visible, making its location difficult to follow. The concept of a blinking cursor can be attributed to Charles Kiesling Sr. via US Patent 3531796, filed in August 1967. Some interfaces use an underscore or thin vertical bar to indicate that

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4212-611: 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

4293-464: The following elements may appear on the taskbar respectively from left to right: Task switcher is a feature present in Windows 3.0 and all subsequent versions of Windows. It allows a user to cycle through existing application windows by holding down the Alt key and tapping the Tab ↹ key. Starting with Windows 95, as long as the Alt key is pressed, a list of active windows is displayed, allowing

4374-464: 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

4455-485: 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

4536-551: The keyboard." According to Roger Bates, a young hardware designer at ARC under Bill English , the cursor on the screen was for some unknown reason also referred to as CAT at the time, which led to calling the new pointing device a mouse as well. In most command-line interfaces or text editors , the text cursor, also known as a caret , is an underscore , a solid rectangle, or a vertical line, which may be flashing or steady, indicating where text will be placed when entered (the insertion point ). In text mode displays, it

4617-413: 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

4698-435: 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

4779-401: The mouse or stylus is moved, the system waits a moment before removing the pointer image from the old location on the screen. A copy of the pointer persists at every point that the pointer has visited at that moment, resulting in a snake-like trail of pointer icons that follow the actual pointer. When the user stops moving the mouse or removes the stylus from the screen, the trails disappear and

4860-474: The next release of its browser, codenamed "Constellation", would completely integrate with Windows and add a new shell, codenamed "HomePort", which would present the same files and shortcuts no matter which machine a user logged into. Microsoft started working on a similar Internet Explorer release, codenamed " Nashville ". Internet Explorer 4.0 was redesigned and resulted in two products: the standalone Internet Explorer 4 and Windows Desktop Update , which updated

4941-521: The pointer returns to normal. Pointer trails have been provided as a feature mainly for users with poor vision and for screens where low visibility may become an issue, such as LCD screens in bright sunlight. In Windows, pointer trails may be enabled in the Control Panel , usually under the Mouse applet. Introduced with Windows NT , an animated pointer was a small looping animation that

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5022-403: 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

5103-476: The possibility to have a Windows installation without the shell, which results in fewer processes loaded and running. Windows 8 removed Flip 3D in order to repurpose Win-Tab for displaying an application switcher sidebar containing live previews of active Windows Store apps for users without touchscreens. Windows 10 added the possibility to have more than one virtual desktop, known as Task View , to group active program windows to their own virtual desktop. It

5184-416: The related AutoRun feature, configured by a file on the media itself, although AutoRun is selectable as an AutoPlay option when both are enabled. File Explorer is a Windows component that can browse the shell namespace. In other words, it can browse disks, files and folders as a file manager would, but can also access Control Panel, dial-up network objects, and other elements introduced above. In addition,

5265-579: The shell with features such as Active Desktop , Active Channels , Web folders, desktop toolbars such as the Quick Launch bars, ability to minimize windows by clicking their button on the taskbar, HTML-based folder customization, single click launching, image thumbnails, folder infotips, web view in folders, Back and Forward navigation buttons, larger toolbar buttons with text labels, favorites, file attributes in Details view, and an address bar in Windows Explorer, among other features. It also introduced

5346-517: 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

5427-505: 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

5508-456: 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

5589-427: The underlying principles of the planimeter to inputting X- and Y-coordinate data, and envisioned something like the cursor of a mouse he initially called a bug , which, in a 3-point form, could have a "drop point and 2 orthogonal wheels". He wrote that the "bug" would be "easier" and "more natural" to use, and unlike a stylus, it would stay still when let go, which meant it would be "much better for coordination with

5670-497: The user disliked the new interface. This is included with all versions of Windows up to and including Windows XP Service Pack 1. In SP2 and SP3, PROGMAN.EXE is just an icon library, and it was completely removed from Windows Vista in 2006. The new shell was also ported to Windows NT, initially released as the NewShell update for Windows NT 3.51 and then fully integrated into Windows NT 4.0 . In early 1996, Netscape announced that

5751-415: The user is in insert mode , a mode where text will be inserted in the middle of the existing text, and a larger block to indicate that the user is in overtype mode, where inserted text will overwrite existing text. In this way, a block cursor may be seen as a piece of selected text one character wide, since typing will replace the text in the cursor with the new text. A vertical line text cursor with

5832-424: The user to cycle through the list by tapping the Tab ↹ key. An alternative to this form of switching is using the mouse to click on a visible portion of an inactive window. However, Alt + Tab ↹ may be used to switch out of a full screen window. This is particularly useful in video games that lock, restrict or alter mouse interactions for the purpose of the game. Starting with Windows Vista, Windows Desktop

5913-470: 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

5994-479: Was changed to File Explorer beginning with Windows 8, although the program name remains explorer.exe . The first public demonstration of Windows, in 1983, had a simplistic shell called the Session Control Layer, which served as a constantly visible menu at the bottom of the screen. Clicking on Run would display a list of programs that one could launch, and clicking on Session Control would display

6075-458: Was introduced with Windows Vista and removed in Windows 8. It is invoked by holding down the ⊞ Win key and tapping the Tab ↹ key. As long as the ⊞ Win key remains pressed, Windows displays all application windows, including the Desktop, in an isometric view , diagonally across the screen from the top left corner to the bottom right corner. The active window at the time of pressing

6156-430: Was introduced, which maintained buttons representing open windows, a digital clock, a notifications area for background processes and their notifications, and the Start button, which invoked the Start menu . The Start menu contains links to settings, recently used files and, like its predecessor Program Manager, shortcuts and program groups. Program Manager is also included in Windows 95 for backward compatibility, in case

6237-399: 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

6318-588: 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

6399-467: Was not possible to show a vertical bar between characters to show where the new text would be inserted, so an underscore or block cursor was used instead. In situations where a block was used, the block was usually created by inverting the pixels of the character using the Boolean math exclusive or function. On text editors and word processors of modern design on bitmapped displays, the vertical bar

6480-505: Was played at the location of the pointer. This is used, for example, to provide a visual cue that the computer is busy with a task. After their introduction, many animated pointers became available for download from third party suppliers. Animated pointers are not without their problems. In addition to imposing a small additional load on the CPU, the animated pointer routines did introduce a security vulnerability . A client-side exploit known as

6561-465: Was pressed. (They have to be switched with their own dedicated task switcher, activated through the ⊞ Win + Tab ↹ combination.) Windows 8.1 extended Alt + Tab ↹ to manage the Metro-style apps as well. Windows 10 and 11 have a unified task switcher called Task View , which manages not only application windows but virtual desktops as well. Flip 3D is a supplemental task switcher. It

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