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-sectionswindows, 
menus, and dialogsand 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 runsuch 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 ENTER 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. 

