The Windows Pattern
What We'll Learn
- Recognize the pattern of a Window
- Learn how to manipulate Windows
- Learn some common terms related to Windows
- Identify differences between Desktop Apps and Store Apps
What's a Window?
Early computers simply had text on a single screen. People then invented a way to use "Screen-in-screen" so that several things could be running and seen at once on a single screen. These little screens were called "Windows" and form a basic pattern used in the Microsoft Windows operating system.
A window is the second pattern to learn to be familiar with how to easily use a Windows computer. Below is a picture of a typical window with various parts labelled: Exercise 1 - Exploring a Window
Use these steps to open Notepad a simple Windows program: - Click Start
- Start typing the word notepad, click Notepad as soon as it appears in the menu above.
- Observe or try the following
- The Menu Bar - Gives access to the common functions of a program.
- Note the common menus File, Edit, View, and Help. These are on most programs.
- File lets you save or load a file into a program.
- Edit lets you select, copy and paste content.
- View changes how a program window looks. Click the items on the View menu to see how they work.
- Help gives you access to information about the program.
- The Title Bar - Shows the name of the program.
- Put your mouse on the Title Bar and drag the window to a different spot on the screen.
- The Minimize button - places the program on the "back burner", hiding it so it only appears as a Task Bar button.
- Click Minimize button to minimize a window.
- Click the corresponding Task Bar button to put the Window back on the screen.
- The Maximize button - expands the program to fill the entire screen
- Click the Maximize button to maximize the window. Note how it changes shape to a Restore button.
- Click the Restore (Maximize) button to return the Window to its previous size.
- The Close button shuts down the program.
- Click the Close button to shut down the Window
- Restart the Window using the 3 steps above.
- Scroll Bars - will appear if all the information does not fit in the window.
- Type some letters, then press Enter until a scroll bar appears on the right hand side.
- Drag or click on the scroll bar to move the window contents up and down.
- Window Borders - can be dragged to re-size the Window when not maximized.
- Try changing the size of the window by dragging the border and the corners.
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