X Windows in a Hurry

The windowing environment used in the laboratory is called X Windows. It works similarly to other windowing environments such as Windows on PC's and the Macintosh user interface. However, X Windows is less consistent than these other systems and takes some getting used to.

Every window is surrounded by a frame. The frame is used to move, resize and otherwise manipulated the window. The frame itself is divided into different components: the buttons, the title bar, and the edges.

The title bar is the section in the upper centre that contains a label for the window, in this case xterm. There is one button on the left containing a rectangle, and two buttons on the right, one with a small square and one with a large square. The rest of the frame is the edge, which is itself divided as you can see into corner sections and side sections.

• To move a window, click the left mouse button down on the title bar, drag the mouse to the new location, and lift up on the left mouse button.
• To resize the window, click the left mouse button down on any edge , drag the mouse to the desired size for the window, and release the left mouse button. If you resize using a corner section you will be able to make any size you want, whereas if you use a side section, you will be able to resize in one direction only.
• To get windows out of the way, you can iconify them. By pressing the button with the small square with the left mouse button, the window will disappear and be replaced by a small icon on the screen like this:
  
  You can restore the icon to the original window by double clicking on the icon with the left mouse button. You will see a couple of windows already iconified when you log in.
• To close a window, double click on the left title bar button with the left mouse button.

Since the windowing system allows several windows to be open at once, there has to be a way to select what window is the one currently being used. To do this, just click on the window's title bar with the left mouse button. The colour of the frame will change to let you know that this is the active window, and everything you type will now be sent to this window.