ABSTRACT
When computing was a young industry, all of a user’s interaction with the computer took place in one window. The window usually encompassed the entire screen of whatever display device was being used. The user had little or no control over the display options of that window, except perhaps for the number and width of the lines being displayed. As computing progressed it became possible to have more than one process running at the same time. This led the user to interact with more than one process at a time, thus having one window for each process, and the invention of a window manager. A window manager allows the user to display, alter, and interact with more than one window at a time. The window manager’s primary responsibility is to keep track of all aspects of each of the windows being displayed. Today, windows can be overlapped, put side by side, tiled, cascaded, hidden, stretched, reduced, iconified (reduced to an icon), and otherwise altered to the user’s tastes and needs (Fig. 8.1). Cascaded and overlapped windows with icons. https://s3-euw1-ap-pe-df-pch-content-public-p.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/9780203710012/aa3884bb-b565-45f4-9d9d-a4630d0422bf/content/fig8_1.tif"/>
