| Section 1-3: Windows Basics | ||
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This section is one of the most important in the whole book, so don't skip it! It teaches you the many ways that Windows displays and accepts data. If you know the content of just one section, make this one be it!
Sometimes data won't fit on the screen because there's too much of it. Windows solves this problem by giving the data a scrollbar. (See illustration below.) This is a gray bar with a box and arrows. This box tells you a load of information about not only where you are in a document, but also how long it is. The length of the scrollbar represents the entire document. The box represents the portion of the document you're looking at.
To move through the document, drag the box around. To move small distances (one or two lines at a time), click the arrows at either end of the scrollbar. To move longer distances, click the blank area between the box and the arrows. Holding down the button makes the box move until it reaches your cursor. Scrollbars can extend up-and-down as well as right-and-left. They are located at the right and bottom edges of the data.
Figure 1.3: A scrollbar
NOTE
If you look just mere inches to your right, you will find a real-life, actual scrollbar! Use it from now on to scroll through the book.
You send and recieve data to and from the computer by way of interface elements collectively known as controls. You will see controls in many places throughout Windows, so be sure you know them and what they do!
At any one time, one control is currently selected - it is said to have the focus. The focus is denoted with a ring of dots around the control's text; but when a text box has the focus, it displays the | insertion point. Pressing Enter or Space while a control has the focus is the equivalent of clicking it. You can move the focus around by simply pressing Tab. In this way, you can quickly zip through options without ever having to reach for the mouse. It can also help if your mouse is down at the time and you're attempting to revive it (e.g. fixing a bad driver).
The most common controls are shown below, with a short description of how they work.
NOTE
Some of the controls illustrated below are labeled as functional. So feel free to play with them, because they actually work (although they don't do anything important).
When you click an onscreen button, a patch of code executes, setting a process in motion, much the way a button on an appliance would work in real life. Press the button above to display a friendly greeting.
Perhaps the simplest of all controls, the text box relays text-based data to the computer. To use a text box, simply click it and type.
Most folks find the check box control fairly easy to manipulate. It signifies to the computer your choice on a particular matter, yes or no - in computer terms, a boolean (true/false) value. It's simple; to place a checkmark in the box, click it. To clear the box, click it again.
Occasionally, a checkbox may get into a weird half-checked state. In this case it displays a checkmark, but the background of the box is gray. This normally happens when the checkbox describes a property of an object, and multiple objects are selected, some having a True value, some showing false. For example, in Figure 1.4, I have some data files selected. Two of the files have their Read-Only property set to False, but one has it set to True, causing the box to come up half-checked.
Figure 1.4: A half-checked check box
Some call it a radio button, some call it an option button, but whatever you call it, it's a favorite of programmers everywhere. Unlike check boxes, option buttons are always found in groups, but only one can be filled in (checked) at once. This is often used to allow the user (that is, you) to select just one value from an array of choices. For example, in the option button group above, you may select either small, medium, or large, but a pizza can't be both large and medium.
When the number of options an option button group must display becomes staggering, a programmer will often convert it to a list control. This simply displays a list of options. To select an option, just click it, and it becomes highlighted. Many list box controls have scrollbars.
Not as obvious about the list box is its built-in search mechanism. To quickly select an option, type any letter while the list box has the focus. The next option that starts with that letter will automatically become selected. For example, click the list box above and hit "A". "Anim8or" should be selected. Hit "A" again, and "Adobe Photoshop" becomes selected.
The combo box is an interesting control: a combination list box and text box. The top part of the control acts like a text box. Clicking the arrow next to the text box causes a list of choices to drop down. When a choice is selected from the list, it is displayed in the text box control, and the list disappears.
Many combo boxes (but not the one displayed above, unfortunately) allow a choice not on the list to be typed into the text box. Here is an animation of this process:
Figure 1.5: Choosing an unlisted choice
Figure 1.6: Slider, progress bar, and tabbed dialog controls
A slider control presents a range of numeric choices, and you select a value by dragging the pointer along the control. For example, if a slider represents the range 1-10, to select 5, you would drag the pointer to the middle of the control. The current value is shown in a small box that appears near your cursor.
The progress bar simply displays percent of a whole, but, as its name implies, is most often used to display the progress of an operation. For example, when you are transferring data to a floppy disk, a screen appears with a progress bar showing how much of the data has been transferred. (Older progress bar controls left over from Windows 3.1 display a percentage in the middle of the bar.)
When the number of controls that would be displayed in one area becomes overwhelming, a tabbed dialog control may be used. Here, controls are categorized on several different pages, called tabs. Clicking the top of a tab brings it into view, and the contents of the other tabs are hidden from view.
The initial screen that appears when Windows finishes loading and turns itself over to you (after you log in) is called the desktop. It usually contains one or more icons, which are simply quick shortcuts to programs, Web sites, or other locations on your computer.
You can change the desktop to any color you want, or any image on your computer, including a number of attractive backgrounds or patterns included with Windows. (If you bought a computer new from a computer manufacturer such as Dell or Gateway, it may come shipped with a desktop image depicting their corporate logo. In these cases, you should definitely personalize your desktop.) You can also add and delete shortcut icons displayed on the desktop.
The Windows platform solves one of the major problems of the DOS operating system: its inability to multitask. When a particularly lengthy process was being executed, the user was expected to wait patiently for the computer to finish its task. I'm sure you can imagine how annoying that could be!
Unlike DOS, Windows can multitask, that is, run more than one program at once. To keep the programs separate, programs are kept in one or more separate windows. Windows are laid out on top of the desktop and can overlap. You can resize them by dragging the edges (You knew Windows was called that for a reason, didn't you?)
Most programs are made up of more than one window. There is normally one main window where most of your work takes place. In addition, there are usually many smaller windows, called dialogs, which are accessed through the main window.
Dialogs typically contain options for changing your work. For example, in Microsoft Word, there is a dialog for setting up your margins. Dialogs almost always contain two buttons at the bottom or right edge: OK and Cancel. OK accepts all options, and closes the dialog. Cancel closes the dialog without changing anything. Sometimes, there is a third button (Apply). Clicking this button accepts the options like OK, but does not close the dialog.
Many tiny windows appear on your screen for the sole purpose of simply displaying a message. These are called message boxes and may simply be dispatched by clicking OK or hitting ENTER. Some message boxes need a yes or no answer.
Though the number of windows you can have open is only constrained by your computer's memory capacity, you can only work with one window at a time. This window is called the active window, and appears on top of any other windows that may be open at the time. To make a different window the active one, click it or hit Alt + Tab until the desired window is activated. When a dialog is displayed, however, you usually must select either OK or Cancel before the main window of the program it belongs to can become the active window.
Windows are made up of several parts, as shown in Figure 1.7:
Figure 1.7: Parts of a window
And here's what they do:
On its face, it's simply an icon representing the program. But clicking it displays a menu full of options for working with the window.
This menu is really more of a relic from Windows 3.1 and earlier; most of these functions can be accessed with the three buttons in the upper-right hand corner of every window. These will be explored below.
NOTE
In Windows 3.1, to close the window you had to double-click the Control Menu to close the window; there was no Close button in the corner of the window. You may still close a menu in this way, if you wish.
This is the blue part of the window in the diagram, but it can be customized to any color you choose (See Chapter 10). The active window's title bar appears blue (or another color); inactive windows have gray title bars. It tells you what the name of the program is, and sometimes what the document name is. For example, the window in the example belonged to WordPad, and the document being displayed was named Document (a default name; the document had not been saved or named yet).
This button simply hides the window without closing it. To retrieve the window, click its button on the taskbar (see below).
When you first open a window, it usually appears in the middle of the screen, covering only the middle of the screen. If you click the Maximize 
button, the window will expand to fill the whole screen, giving you more working space. The Maximize button then becomes the Restore 
button, which will return the window to its previous size.
When you click Close, the window closes and disappears. If you close a program's main window, it will quit the program. To quickly close a window, use the keyboard shortcut Alt+F4.
The menu bar lies directly under the title bar, and displays a list of key words (File, Edit, Select, Format). Clicking one of these choices displays a menu, a list of command choices. The menus are named after the word shown on the menu bar. The name of the menu describes what kind of commands it contains. Example: Select menu has commands for selecting, such as Text and All.
Some menus have commands with an ellipsis () after them. This indicates that if you click them, they will display a dialog.
Sometimes, if a menu is very long, the programmer will create a submenu. This submenu appears as a normal menu option, but with an arrow next to it. Hovering the cursor over this option makes the submenu appear.
If you would like to close a menu without choosing a command, click another menu or click somewhere that's off the menu, such as the title bar.
I have a menu shorthand that I use in all my computer books. When I refer to the 'New' command under the File menu, I will type File > New. The "Mail Recipient" option of the "Send To" submenu of the File Menu in Microsoft Word is File > Send To > Mail Recipient. The italics and > symbols let you know that it's a menu command.
NOTE
Most programmers follow an established syntax that is used with most programs. The first menu is usually the File menu, containing commands for starting new projects, getting projects that you've worked on before, printing, and so on. Next is Edit, which contains handy commands like Undo, Redo, Select All, and so forth. After this come any menus which are unique to the program (not found in any other program). The last menu is always Help, which contains commands that will show on-line manuals. At the very least, it will contain an About command that will show you how to contact technical support.
NOTE
If you want, you can use the keyboard to browse through the windows. When you hit ALT, the first menu name becomes highlighted. Use the left and right arrow keys to move to the menu you want, then press the down arrow key. Now move the highlighted band up and down with the arrow keys, or on to the next menu with the left and right arrow keys. You can quickly jump to a menu command by hitting the underlined letter in the command's name. To drop out of the menu system when using the keyboard, press ESC.
Many programs have a string of buttons with icons on them. This is called a toolbar, and the buttons are quick shortcuts to commands found somewhere in the menus. For example, the printer icon on the toolbar in the example window is the same as the File > Print command.
The status bar is a bar across the bottom of a window, which simply gives helpful directions, tips, or statistics.
Right-clicking an object may bring up a context-specific pop-up menu. This often presents quick shortcuts to commands that are avaliable elsewhere in the menu system.
Stretching across the bottom of the screen is a gray bar, called the taskbar. Whenever you open a window, a button will appear on the taskbar that corresponds to the window. As you open more windows, buttons are displayed for them as well. The button for the currently active window appears pushed in.
Also on the taskbar is the Start Menu, described below, and the system clock. To set the clock, double click it.
Next to the clock are icons representing programs running in the background. Among them is an icon resembling a loudspeaker. Double-click this to set the speaker volume.
The Start menu is accessed by a button that lies at the left edge of the taskbar. It is a menu that contains listings of your programs, shortcuts to your recently used documents, and more. The Start Menu was redesigned in Windows XP, and so it differs from that in other versions of Windows.
Figure 1.8: The Start Menu in Windows 98
The commands under XP work exactly the same as those in older versions of Windows, with the addition of some new commands to make the Start Menu more convenient.
Figure 1.9: The Start Menu in Windows XP
This shuts down Windows and your computer. You may also choose to reboot your computer, or log off the current user account (in 2000).
Figure 1.10: The shutdown dialog in Windows 98 and XP
CAUTION
If you shut down the computer without selecting Start > Shut Down, you may lose data or damage your computer, as described in Section 1-6. As I said once to one of my Nerds-In-Training, selecting Start > Shut Down is like telling your computer to go to bed nicely; just shutting off the computer is like knocking it over the head with a bludgeon. I sure know which one I would prefer if I were a computer.
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