Operating Systems Introduction
Author: Brian Brown, 1995-2000. All rights reserved.
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Window objects and components
This section discusses window options such as buttons and dialog boxes.

Text Boxes
Text boxes allow you to enter text information. To enter text, first click inside the text area using the mouse, and the cursor will change to a vertical flashing bar | showing you that text can now be entered.

In this image, a text box allows the user to specify a file to find on the computer. The name of the text box entry field is called Named:

Radio Buttons
Radio buttons allow users to select one of a number of options from a selection. In the following image, a choice between Tiled and Centered is offered. A radio button is enabled when there is a black dot in its center. A radio button is disabled when it is empty. To enable a radio button, simply click once on it. To disable a radio button that is enabled, simply click once on it. It works like a toggle switch.

Check Boxes
Check boxes allow users to select one or more options from a selection. In the following image, the options Show window contents while dragging, Show icons using all possible colors and Stretch desktop wallpaper to fit the screen are all enabled.

A check box is enabled when it has a tick in it, when a check box is empty, that option is not selected. To enable a check box, simply click once on it. To disable a check box that is enabled, simply click once on it. It works like a toggle switch.

Dialog Boxes
Dialog boxes allow you to make choices and enter data. They combine text boxes with radio buttons and check boxes.

To close a dialog box, press the ESC key.

List Boxes
List boxes present a number of choices. You select one by double-clicking on the item you want. Often the list of choices is in a scrollable window box.

In this example, the Help dialog box of Windows lists a number of help topics that the user can double-click on to reveal the help associated with that item.

Drop Down List Boxes
To minimize the amount of screen space, list boxes can sometimes be arranged as a drop down list box. This displays a single item, but when the list box is clicked on, the range of items pops up in a secondary window.

A drop down list box is shown below. In this example, it is part of the Dialog box associated with the Display Properties.

Notice the symbol at the end of the box. Clicking on this symbol reveals the list of options.

Tab Controls
Tab controls allow a number of different dialog boxes associated with a device to be presented as a single combined control. For instance, if we looked at the screen display in Windows, there are so many things that can be changed, like screen saver, wall-paper, size and resolution, video display driver and so on.

Putting all of these on a single dialog box is cumbersome and there is just not enough screen real estate. So, a number of dialog boxes are used, but they are combined using the tab control. It looks like multiple sections, and each tab has a heading. Clicking on the tab item reveals the dialog box associated with that tab.

In this example, the tab control for the Windows desktop properties is displayed. Note there are FOUR distinct dialog boxes; the current choice is Screen Saver.

Toolbars
Toolbars appear on a number of windows and application programs. An example is the My Computer window.

The toolbar is displayed underneath the Menu Bar Options of the window. An expanded view looks like

The toolbar consists of a number of icons (little pictures), each representing a command. As the mouse cursor is moved along each icon, a text description will pop up revealing the available control that is underneath the mouse cursor.

Toolbars provide shortcuts to regularly used operations like cut and paste, close, and Help.

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