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Thehistory of thegraphical user interface, understood as the use of graphicicons and a pointing device to control acomputer, covers a five-decade span of incremental refinements, built on some constant core principles. Several vendors have created their own windowing systems based on independentcode, but with basic elements in common that define theWIMP "window, icon, menu and pointing device" paradigm.
There have been important technological achievements, and enhancements to the general interaction in small steps over previous systems. There have been a few significant breakthroughs in terms of use, but the same organizationalmetaphors and interactionidioms are still in use.Desktop computers are often controlled by computer mice and/or keyboards while laptops often have apointing stick ortouchpad, and smartphones and tablet computers have atouchscreen. The influence of game computers andjoystick operation has been omitted.
Early dynamic information devices such asradar displays, where input devices were used for direct control of computer-created data, set the basis for later improvements of graphical interfaces.[2] Some earlycathode-ray-tube (CRT) screens used alight pen, rather than a mouse, as the pointing device.
The concept of a multi-panel windowing system was introduced by the first real-time graphic display systems for computers: theSAGE Project andIvan Sutherland'sSketchpad.[3]
In the 1960s,Douglas Engelbart'sAugmentation of Human Intellect project at theAugmentation Research Center atSRI International inMenlo Park, California developed theoN-Line System (NLS).[4] This computer incorporated a mouse-driven cursor and multiple windows used to work onhypertext. Engelbart had been inspired, in part, by thememex desk-based information machine suggested byVannevar Bush in 1945.
Much of the early research was based on how young children learn. So, the design was based on the childlike characteristics ofhand–eye coordination, rather than use ofcommand languages, user-definedmacro procedures, or automated transformation of data as later used by adult professionals.
Engelbart publicly demonstrated this work at theAssociation for Computing Machinery /Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (ACM/IEEE)—Computer Society'sFall Joint Computer Conference inSan Francisco on December 9, 1968. It was so-calledThe Mother of All Demos.[5]
The development of computers having multiple overlapping and resizable windows on a "desktop" is commonly, and incorrectly, attributed toXerox PARC and itsAlto. The Xerox Alto's windowing system was inspired by the DNLS (Display NLS)'s overlapping multi-windowing system, which was operational by early 1973 and used at severalARPA locations.[7] In the DNLS, overlapping windows were referred to as "display areas" and could store multiple lines of strings.
In 1971, the screen could only be split into two display areas, vertically or horizontally; by early 1973, the full overlapping windowing system was implemented, and was capable of displaying on anImlac PDS-1.[8][7] The Xerox Alto greatly improved upon this system by adding the capability to display bitmapped images, buttons, and other graphics in these windows, as opposed to the DNLS's overlapping display areas which could only display strings of text.
Engelbart's work directly led to the advances atXerox PARC. Several people went from SRI to Xerox PARC in the early 1970s.In 1973, Xerox PARC developed theAlto personal computer. It had abitmapped screen, and was the first computer to demonstrate thedesktop metaphor andgraphical user interface (GUI). Several thousand units were built and were heavily used at PARC, as well as other XEROX offices, and at several universities for many years. The Alto greatly influenced the design of personal computers during the late 1970s and early 1980s, notably theThree Rivers PERQ, theApple Lisa andMacintosh, and the firstSun workstations.
The modernWIMP GUI was first developed at Xerox PARC byAlan Kay,Larry Tesler,Dan Ingalls,David Smith,Clarence Ellis and a number of other researchers. This was introduced in theSmalltalk programming environment. It usedwindows,icons, andmenus (including the first fixed drop-down menu) to support commands such as opening files, deleting files, moving files, etc. In 1974, work began at PARC on Gypsy, the first bitmap What-You-See-Is-What-You-Get (WYSIWYG) cut and paste editor. In 1975, Xerox engineers demonstrated a graphical user interface "including icons and the first use of pop-up menus".[9]
In 1981 Xerox introduced a pioneering product,Star, aworkstation incorporating many of PARC's innovations. Although not commercially successful, Star greatly influenced future developments, for example atApple,Microsoft andSun Microsystems.[10]
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Released by digital imaging companyQuantel in 1981, thePaintbox was a color graphical workstation with support for mouse input, but more oriented forgraphics tablets; this model also was notable as one of the first systems to implementpop-up menus.[11]
TheBlit, a graphics terminal, was developed at Bell Labs in 1982.
Lisp machines originally developed atMIT and later commercialized bySymbolics and other manufacturers, were early high-end single user computer workstations with advanced graphical user interfaces, windowing, and mouse as an input device. First workstations from Symbolics came to market in 1981, with more advanced designs in the subsequent years.
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Beginning in 1979, started bySteve Jobs and led byJef Raskin, theApple Lisa andMacintosh teams atApple Computer (which included former members of the Xerox PARC group) continued to develop such ideas. The Lisa, released in 1983, featured a document-centric graphical interface atop an advanced hard disk based OS that featured such things aspreemptive multitasking andgraphically orientedinter-process communication. The comparatively simplified Macintosh, released in 1984 and designed to be lower in cost, was the first commercially successful product to use a multi-panel window interface. Adesktop metaphor was used, in which files looked like pieces of paper, file directories looked like file folders, there were a set ofdesk accessories like a calculator, notepad, and alarm clock that the user could place around the screen as desired, and the user could delete files and folders by dragging them to atrash-can icon on the screen. The Macintosh, in contrast to the Lisa, used a program-centric rather than document-centric design. Apple revisited the document-centric design, in a limited manner, much later withOpenDoc.
There is still some controversy over the amount of influence that Xerox'sPARC work, as opposed to previous academic research, had on the GUIs of theApple Lisa and Macintosh, but it is clear that the influence was extensive, because first versions of Lisa GUIs even lacked icons.[12][13] These prototype GUIs are at least mouse-driven, but completely ignored theWIMP ( "window, icon, menu, pointing device") concept. Screenshots of first GUIs of Apple Lisa prototypes show the early designs. Apple engineers visited the PARC facilities (Apple secured the rights for the visit by compensating Xerox with a pre-IPO purchase of Apple stock) and a number of PARC employees subsequently moved to Apple to work on the Lisa and Macintosh GUI. However, the Apple work extended PARC's considerably, adding manipulatable icons, anddrag and drop manipulation of objects in the file system (seeMacintosh Finder) for example. A list of the improvements made by Apple, beyond the PARC interface, can be read at Folklore.org.[14] Jef Raskin warns that many of the reported facts in the history of the PARC and Macintosh development are inaccurate, distorted or even fabricated, due to the lack of usage by historians of direct primary sources.[15]
In 1984, Apple released a television commercial which introduced the Apple Macintosh during the telecast ofSuper Bowl XVIII byCBS,[16] with allusions toGeorge Orwell's noted novel,Nineteen Eighty-Four. The commercial was aimed at making people think about computers, identifying the user-friendly interface as a personal computer which departed from previous business-oriented systems,[17] and becoming a signature representation of Apple products.[18]
In 1986, theApple IIGS was launched with 16-bit CPU and significantly improved graphics and audio. It shipped with a new operating system,Apple GS/OS, with aFinder-like GUI similar to the Macintosh series.
The Soviet Union-producedAgat PC featured a graphical interface and a mouse device and was released in 1983.[19]
Founded 1982,SGI introduced theIRIS 1000 Series[20] in 1983.[21] The first graphical terminals (IRIS 1000) shipped in late 1983, and the corresponding workstation model (IRIS 1400) was released in mid-1984. The machines used an early version of theMEX windowing system on top of the GL2 Release 1 operating environment.[22] Examples of the MEX user interface can be seen in a 1988 article in the journal "Computer Graphics",[23] while earlier screenshots can not be found. The first commercial GUI-based systems, these did not find widespread use as to their (discounted) academic list price of $22,500 and $35,700 for the IRIS 1000 and IRIS 1400, respectively.[21] However, these systems were commercially successful enough to start SGI's business as one of the main graphical workstation vendors. In later revisions of graphical workstations, SGI switched to theX window system, which had been developed starting atMIT since 1984 and which became the standard for UNIX workstations.
VisiCorp'sVisi On was a GUI designed to run on DOS for IBM PCs. It was released in December 1983. Visi On had many features of a modern GUI, and included a few that did not become common until many years later. It was fully mouse-driven, used a bit-mapped display for both text and graphics, included on-line help, and allowed the user to open a number of programs at once, each in its own window, and switch between them to multitask.[24] Visi On did not, however, include a graphical file manager. Visi On also demanded a hard drive in order to implement its virtual memory system used for "fast switching", at a time when hard drives were very expensive.
Digital Research (DRI) created GEM as an add-on program for personal computers. GEM was developed to work with existingCP/M andMS-DOS compatible operating systems on business computers such asIBM PC compatibles. It was developed from DRI software, known as GSX, designed by a formerPARC employee. Its similarity to theMacintosh desktop led to a copyright lawsuit fromApple Computer, and a settlement which involved some changes to GEM. This was to be the first of a series of "look and feel" lawsuits related to GUI design in the 1980s.
GEM received widespread use in the consumer market from 1985, when it was made the default user interface built into theAtari TOS operating system of theAtari ST line of personal computers. It was also bundled by other computer manufacturers and distributors, such asAmstrad. Later, it was distributed with the best-sold Digital Research version of DOS for IBM PC compatibles, theDR-DOS 6.0. The GEM desktop faded from the market with the withdrawal of the Atari ST line in 1992 and with the popularity of theMicrosoftWindows 3.0 in the PC front around the same period of time. The Falcon030, released in 1993 was the last computer from Atari to use GEM.
Tandy's DeskMate appeared in the early 1980s on itsTRS-80 machines and was ported to itsTandy 1000 range in 1984. Like most PC GUIs of the time, it depended on adisk operating system such asTRSDOS orMS-DOS. The application was popular at the time and included a number of programs like Draw, Text and Calendar, as well as attracting outside investment such asLotus 1-2-3 for DeskMate.
MSX-View was developed forMSX computers byASCII Corporation andHAL Laboratory. MSX-View contains software such as Page Edit, Page View, Page Link, VShell, VTed, VPaint and VDraw. An external version of the built-in MSX View of the Panasonic FS-A1GT was released as an add-on for the Panasonic FS-A1ST on disk instead of 512 KB ROM DISK.
TheAmiga computer was launched byCommodore in 1985 with a GUI calledWorkbench. Workbench was based on an internal engine developed mostly byRJ Mical, calledIntuition, which drove all the input events. The first versions used a blue/orange/white/black default palette, which was selected for high contrast on televisions andcomposite monitors. Workbench presented directories as drawers to fit in with the "workbench" theme. Intuition was thewidget and graphics library that made the GUI work. It was driven by user events through the mouse, keyboard, and other input devices.
Due to a mistake made by the Commodore sales department, the first floppies ofAmigaOS (released with the Amiga1000) named the whole OS "Workbench". Since then, users and CBM itself referred to "Workbench" as the nickname for the wholeAmigaOS (including Amiga DOS, Extras, etc.). This common consent ended with release of version2.0 of AmigaOS, which re-introduced proper names to the installation floppies ofAmigaDOS, Workbench, Extras, etc.
Starting with Workbench 1.0,AmigaOS treated the Workbench as a backdrop, borderless window sitting atop a blank screen. With the introduction ofAmigaOS 2.0, however, the user was free to select whether the main Workbench window appeared as a normally layered window, complete with a border and scrollbars, through a menu item.
Amiga users were able to boot their computer into acommand-line interface (also known as the CLI or Amiga Shell). This was a keyboard-based environment without the Workbench GUI. Later they could invoke it with the CLI/SHELL command "LoadWB" which loaded Workbench GUI.
One major difference between other OS's of the time (and for some time after) was the Amiga's fullymulti-tasking operating system, a powerful built-in animation system using a hardwareblitter andcopper and four channels of 26 kHz 8-bit sampled sound. This made the Amiga the first multi-media computer years before other OS's.
Like most GUIs of the day, Amiga's Intuition followed Xerox's, and sometimes Apple's, lead. But aCLI was included which dramatically extended the functionality of the platform. However, the CLI/Shell of Amiga is not just a simpletext-based interface like inMS-DOS, but another graphic process driven by Intuition, and with the same gadgets included in Amiga's graphics.library. The CLI/Shell interface integrates itself with the Workbench, sharing privileges with the GUI.
The Amiga Workbench evolved over the 1990s, even after Commodore's 1994 bankruptcy.
Acorn's 8-bit BBC Master Compact shipped with Acorn's first publicGUI interface in 1986.[25] Little commercial software, beyond that included on the Welcome disk, was ever made available for the system, despite the claim by Acorn at the time that "the major software houses have worked with Acorn to make over 100 titles available on compilation discs at launch".[26] The most avid supporter of the Master Compact appeared to beSuperior Software, who produced and specifically labelled their games as 'Master Compact' compatible.
RISC OS/rɪskoʊˈɛs/[27] is a series ofgraphical user interface-based computeroperating systems (OSes) designed forARM architecture systems. It takes its name from the RISC (reduced instruction set computer) architecture supported. The OS was originally developed byAcorn Computers for use with their 1987 range ofArchimedes personal computers using theAcorn RISC Machine (ARM) processors. It comprises acommand-line interface anddesktop environment with awindowing system.
Originally branded as theArthur 1.20 the subsequentArthur 2 release was shipped under the name RISC OS 2.
TheWIMP interface incorporates threemouse buttons (namedSelect,Menu andAdjust),context-sensitive menus, window stack control (i.e. send to back) and dynamic windowfocus (a window can have input focus at any position on the stack). TheIcon bar (Dock) holds icons which represent mounted disc drives, RAM discs, network directories, running applications, system utilities and docked: Files, Directories or inactive Applications. These icons and open windows have context-sensitive menus and supportdrag-and-drop behaviour. They represent the running application as a whole, irrespective of whether it has open windows.
The application has control of the context-sensitive menus, inapplicable menu choices can be 'greyed out' to make them unavailable. Menus have their own titles and may be moved around the desktop by the user. Any menu can have further sub-menus or a new window for complicated choices.
The GUI is centered around the concept of files. The Filer displays the contents of a disc. Applications are run from the Filer view and files can be dragged to the Filer view from applications to perform saves. The opposite can perform a load. With their co-operation data can be copied or moved directly between applications by saving (dragging) to another application.
Application directories are used to store applications. The OS differentiates them from normal directories through the use of apling (exclamation mark, also called shriek) prefix. Double-clicking on such a directory launches the application rather than opening the directory. The application's executable files and resources are contained within the directory, but normally they remain hidden from the user. Because applications are self-contained, this allows drag-and-drop installation and removal.
Files are normally typed. RISC OS has some predefined types. Applications can supplement the set of known types. Double-clicking a file with a known type will launch the appropriate application to load the file.
TheRISC OSStyle Guide encourages a consistent look and feel across applications. This was introduced inRISC OS 3 and specifies application appearance and behaviour. Acorn's own mainbundled applications were not updated to comply with the guide untilRISCOS Ltd'sSelect release in 2001.[28]
Theoutline fonts manager providesspatial anti-aliasing of fonts, the OS being the first operating system to include such a feature,[29][30][31][32] having included it since before January 1989.[33] Since 1994, in RISC OS 3.5, it has been possible to use an outline anti-aliased font in the WindowManager for UI elements, rather than thebitmap system font from previous versions.[34]
Because most of the very earlyIBM PC and compatibles lacked any common true graphical capability (they used the 80-column basictext mode compatible with the originalMDA display adapter), a series offile managers arose, includingMicrosoft'sDOS Shell, which features typical GUI elements as menus, push buttons, lists with scrollbars and mouse pointer. The nametext-based user interface was later invented to name this kind of interface. Many MS-DOS text mode applications, like the default text editor for MS-DOS 5.0 (and related tools, likeQBasic), also used the same philosophy. The IBM DOS Shell included with IBM DOS 5.0 (c. 1992) supported both text display modes and actual graphics display modes, making it both a TUI and a GUI, depending on the chosen mode.
Advanced file managers forMS-DOS were able to redefine character shapes withEGA and better display adapters, giving some basic low resolution icons and graphical interface elements, including an arrow (instead of a coloured cell block) for the mouse pointer. When the display adapter lacks the ability to change the character's shapes, they default to theCP437 character set found in the adapter'sROM. Some popular utility suites for MS-DOS, asNorton Utilities (pictured) andPC Tools used these techniques as well.
DESQview was a text mode multitasking program introduced in July 1985. Running on top ofMS-DOS, it allowed users to run multiple DOS programs concurrently in windows. It was the first program to bring multitasking and windowing capabilities to a DOS environment in which existing DOS programs could be used. DESQview was not a true GUI but offered certain components of one, such as resizable, overlapping windows and mouse pointing.
Before theMS-Windows age, and with the lack of a true common GUI under MS-DOS, most graphical applications which worked withEGA,VGA and better graphic cards had proprietary built-in GUIs. One of the best known such graphical applications wasDeluxe Paint, a popular painting software with a typical WIMP interface.
The originalAdobe Acrobat Reader executable file for MS-DOS was able to run on both the standard Windows 3.x GUI and the standard DOS command prompt. When it was launched from the command prompt, on a machine with aVGA graphics card, it provided its own GUI.
Windows 1.0, a GUI for theMS-DOSoperating system, was released in 1985.[35] The market's response was less than stellar.[36]Windows 2.0 followed, but it wasn't until the 1990 launch ofWindows 3.0, based onCommon User Access that its popularity truly exploded. The GUI has seen minor redesigns since, mainly thenetworking enabledWindows 3.11 and itsWin32s 32-bit patch. The16-bit line of MS Windows were discontinued with the introduction ofWindows 95 andWindows NT32-bit based architecture in the 1990s.
The main window of a given application can occupy the full screen inmaximized status. The users must then to switch between maximized applications using the Alt+Tab keyboard shortcut; no alternative with themouse except for de-maximize. When none of the running application windows are maximized, switching can be done by clicking on a partially visible window, as is the common way in other GUIs.
In 1988,Apple sued Microsoft for copyright infringement of theLisa andApple Macintosh GUI. The court case lasted 4 years before almost all of Apple's claims were denied on a contractual technicality. Subsequent appeals by Apple were also denied. Microsoft and Apple apparently entered a final, private settlement of the matter in 1997.
GEOS was launched in 1986, originally written for the 8-bit home computerCommodore 64, and shortly after, theApple II. The name was later used by the company as PC/Geos for IBM PC systems, then Geoworks Ensemble. It came with several application programs like a calendar and word processor. A cut-down version served as the basis forAmerica Online's MS-DOS client. Compared to the competing Windows 3.0 GUI, it could run reasonably well on simpler hardware, but its developer had a restrictive policy towards third-party developers that prevented it from becoming a serious competitor. Additionally, it was targeted at8-bit machines, whilst the16-bit computer age was dawning.
The standard windowing system in theUnix world is theX Window System (commonly X11 or X), first released in the mid-1980s. TheW Window System (1983) was the precursor to X; X was developed at MIT asProject Athena. Its original purpose was to allow users of the newly emerging graphic terminals to access remote graphicsworkstations without regard to the workstation's operating system or the hardware. Due largely to the availability of the source code used to write X, it has become the standard layer for management of graphical and input/output devices and for the building of both local and remote graphical interfaces on virtually all Unix,Linux and otherUnix-like operating systems, with the notable exceptions ofmacOS andAndroid.
X allows a graphical terminal user to make use of remote resources on the network as if they were all located locally to the user by running a single module of software called the X server. The software running on the remote machine is called the client application. X's network transparency protocols allow the display and input portions of any application to be separated from the remainder of the application and 'served up' to any of a large number of remote users. X is available today asfree software.
ThePostScript-basedNeWS (Network extensible Window System) was developed bySun Microsystems in the mid-1980s. For several yearsSunOS included a window system combining NeWS and theX Window System. Although NeWS was considered technically elegant by some commentators, Sun eventually dropped the product. Unlike X, NeWS was alwaysproprietary software.
The widespread adoption of the PC platform in homes and small businesses popularized computers among people with no formal training. This created a fast-growing market, opening an opportunity for commercial exploitation and of easy-to-use interfaces and making economically viable the incremental refinement of the existing GUIs for home systems.
Also, the spreading ofhigh-color andtrue-color capabilities ofdisplay adapters providingthousands andmillions of colors, along with fasterCPUs and accelerated graphic cards, cheaperRAM,storage devices orders of magnitude larger (frommegabytes togigabytes) and largerbandwidth for telecomnetworking at lower cost helped to create an environment in which the common user was able to run complicated GUIs which began to favor aesthetics.
After Windows 3.11, Microsoft started development on a new consumer-oriented version of the operating system. Windows 95 was intended to integrate Microsoft's formerly separate MS-DOS and Windows products and included an enhanced version of DOS, often referred to as MS-DOS 7.0. It also featured a significant redesign of the GUI, dubbed "Cairo". While Cairo never really materialized, parts of Cairo found their way into subsequent versions of the operating system starting with Windows 95. Both Win95 and WinNT could run 32-bit applications, and could exploit the abilities of theIntel 80386CPU, as thepreemptivemultitasking and up to 4 GiB oflinear address memory space. Windows 95 was touted as a 32-bit based operating system but it was actually based on a hybrid kernel (VWIN32.VXD) with the 16-bit user interface (USER.EXE) and graphic device interface (GDI.EXE) of Windows for Workgroups (3.11), which had 16-bit kernel components with a 32-bit subsystem (USER32.DLL and GDI32.DLL) that allowed it to run native 16-bit applications as well as 32-bit applications. In the marketplace, Windows 95 was an unqualified success, promoting a general upgrade to 32-bit technology, and within a year or two of its release had become the most successful operating system ever produced.
Accompanied byan extensive marketing campaign,[37] Windows 95 was a major success in the marketplace at launch and shortly became the most popular desktop operating system.[38]
Windows 95 saw the beginning of thebrowser wars, when the World Wide Web began receiving a great deal of attention in popular culture and mass media. Microsoft at first did not see potential in the Web, and Windows 95 was shipped with Microsoft's own online service calledThe Microsoft Network, which was dial-up only and was used primarily for its own content, not internet access. As versions ofNetscape Navigator andInternet Explorer were released at a rapid pace over the following few years, Microsoft used its desktop dominance to push its browser and shape the ecology of the web mainly as amonoculture.
Windows 95 evolved through the years intoWindows 98 andWindows ME. Windows ME was the last in the line of the Windows 3.x-based operating systems from Microsoft. Windows underwent a parallel 32-bit evolutionary path, where Windows NT 3.1 was released in 1993. Windows NT (for New Technology)[39] was a native 32-bit operating system with a new driver model, was unicode-based, and provided for true separation between applications. Windows NT also supported 16-bit applications in an NTVDM, but it did not support VxD based drivers. Windows 95 was supposed to be released before 1993 as the predecessor to Windows NT. The idea was to promote the development of 32-bit applications with backward compatibility – leading the way for more successful NT release. After multiple delays, Windows 95 was released without unicode and used the VxD driver model. Windows NT 3.1 evolved to Windows NT 3.5, 3.51 and then 4.0 when it finally shared a similar interface with its Windows 9x desktop counterpart and included a Start button. The evolution continued with Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows Vista, then Windows 7. Windows XP and higher were also made available in 64-bit modes. Windows server products branched off with the introduction of Windows Server 2003 (available in 32-bit and 64-bit IA64 or x64), then Windows Server 2008 and then Windows Server 2008 R2. Windows 2000 and XP shared the same basic GUI although XP introduced Visual Styles. With Windows 98, theActive Desktop theme was introduced, allowing anHTML approach for the desktop, but this feature was coldly received by customers, who frequently disabled it. At the end, Windows Vista definitively discontinued it, but put a newSideBar on the desktop.
The Macintosh's GUI has been revised multiple times since 1984, with major updates includingSystem 7 andMac OS 8. It underwent its largest revision to date with the introduction of the "Aqua" interface in 2001'sMac OS X. It was a new operating system built primarily on technology fromNeXTSTEP with UI elements of the original Mac OS grafted on.macOS uses a technology known asQuartz, for graphics rendering and drawing on-screen. Some interface features of macOS are inherited from NeXTSTEP (such as theDock, the automatic wait cursor, or double-buffered windows giving a solid appearance and flicker-free window redraws), while others are inherited from the old Mac OS operating system (the single system-wide menu-bar).Mac OS X 10.3 introduced features to improve usability includingExposé, which is designed to make finding open windows easier.
WithMac OS X 10.4 released in April 2005,[40] new features were added, includingDashboard (a virtual alternate desktop for mini specific-purpose applications) and a search tool calledSpotlight, which provides users with an option for searching through files instead of browsing through folders.
WithMac OS X 10.7 released in July 2011, included support forfull screen apps andMac OS X 10.11 (El Capitan) released in September 2015 support creating a full screen split view by pressing the green button on left upper corner of the window or Control+Cmd+F keyboard shortcut.
In the early days of X Window development, Sun Microsystems and AT&T attempted to push for a GUI standard calledOPEN LOOK in competition withMotif. OPEN LOOK was developed from scratch in conjunction withXerox, while Motif was a collective effort.[41] Motif eventually gained prominence and became the basis forHewlett-Packard'sVisual User Environment (VUE), which later became theCommon Desktop Environment (CDE).
In 1995 theViewTouch Point of Sale hospitality application was created by using xlib, the X Window System's low-level protocol client library for its graphical user interface. ViewTouch demonstrates the value of the X Window System in the realm of embedded vertical market applications, reaching beyond merely the use of 'X' to build general purpose desktop environments and gui toolkits.
In the late 1990s, there was significant growth in the Unix world, especially among thefree software community. New graphical desktop movements grew up around Linux and similar operating systems, based on the X Window System. A new emphasis on providing an integrated and uniform interface to the user brought about new desktop environments, such asKDE Plasma 5,GNOME andXfce which have supplanted CDE in popularity on both Unix and Unix-like operating systems. The Xfce, KDE and GNOME look and feel each tend to undergo more rapid change and less codification than the earlier OPEN LOOK and Motif environments.
Later releases added improvements over the original Workbench, like support for high-color Workbench screens, context menus, and embossed 2D icons with pseudo-3D aspect. Some Amiga users preferred alternative interfaces to standard Workbench, such asDirectory Opus Magellan.
The use of improved, third-party GUI engines became common amongst users who preferred more attractive interfaces – such asMagic User Interface (MUI), andReAction. These object-oriented graphic engines driven by user interface classes and methods were then standardized into the Amiga environment and changed Amiga Workbench to a complete and modern guided interface, with new standard gadgets, animated buttons, true 24-bit-color icons, increased use of wallpapers for screens and windows, alpha channel, transparencies and shadows as any modern GUI provides.
Modern derivatives of Workbench areAmbient forMorphOS, Scalos, Workbench forAmigaOS 4 andWanderer forAROS.There is a brief article on Ambient and descriptions of MUI icons, menus and gadgets ataps.frArchived September 7, 2005, at theWayback Machine and images ofZune stay at mainAROS site.
Use ofobject-oriented graphic engines dramatically changes the look and feel of a GUI to match actual style guides.[citation needed]
Originally collaboratively developed by Microsoft and IBM to replace DOS,OS/2 version 1.0 (released in 1987) had no GUI at all. Version 1.1 (released 1988) included Presentation Manager (PM), an implementation ofIBM Common User Access, which looked a lot like the later Windows 3.1 UI. After the split with Microsoft, IBM developed theWorkplace Shell (WPS) for version 2.0 (released in 1992), a quite radical, object-oriented approach to GUIs. Microsoft later imitated much of this look in Windows 95[citation needed].
TheNeXTSTEP user interface was used in theNeXT line of computers. NeXTSTEP's first major version was released in 1989. It usedDisplay PostScript for its graphical underpinning. The NeXTSTEP interface's most significant feature was theDock, carried with some modification intoMac OS X, and had other minor interface details that some found made it easier and more intuitive to use than previous GUIs. NeXTSTEP's GUI was the first to feature opaque dragging of windows in its user interface, on a comparatively weak machine by today's standards, ideally aided byhigh performance graphics hardware.
BeOS was developed on customAT&T Hobbit-based computers before switching toPowerPC hardware by a team led by former Apple executiveJean-Louis Gassée as an alternative to Mac OS. BeOS was later ported to Intel hardware. It used an object-oriented kernel written by Be, and did not use theX Window System, but a differentGUI written from scratch. Much effort was spent by the developers to make it an efficient platform for multimedia applications. Be Inc. was acquired byPalmSource, Inc. (Palm Inc. at the time) in 2001.[42] The BeOS GUI still lives inHaiku, anopen-source software reimplementation of the BeOS.
General Magic is the apparent parent of all modern smartphone GUI, i.e. touch-screen based including the iPhone et al. In 2007, with theiPhone[43] and later in 2010 with the introduction of theiPad,[44] Apple popularized thepost-WIMP style of interaction formulti-touch screens, with those devices considered to be milestones in the development ofmobile devices.[45][46]
Other portable devices such asMP3 players andcell phones have been a burgeoning area of deployment for GUIs in recent years. Since the mid-2000s, a vast majority of portable devices have advanced to having high-screen resolutions and sizes. (TheGalaxy Note 4's 2,560 × 1,440 pixel display is an example). Because of this, these devices have their own famed user interfaces andoperating systems that have largehomebrew communities dedicated to creating their own visual elements, such as icons, menus, wallpapers, and more. Post-WIMP interfaces are often used in these mobile devices, where the traditional pointing devices required by the desktop metaphor are not practical.
As high-powered graphics hardware draws considerable power and generates significant heat, many of the 3D effects developed between 2000 and 2010 are not practical on this class of device. This has led to the development ofsimpler interfaces making a design feature of two dimensionality such as exhibited by theMetro (Modern) UI first used inWindows 8 and the 2012Gmail redesign.[citation needed][dubious –discuss]
In the first decade of the 21st century, the rapid development ofGPUs led to a trend for the inclusion of 3D effects in window management. It is based in experimental research[citation needed] inuser interface design trying to expand the expressive power of the existing toolkits in order to enhance the physical cues that allow fordirect manipulation. New effects common to several projects are scale resizing and zooming, several windows transformations and animations (wobbly windows, smooth minimization to system tray...), composition of images (used for window drop shadows and transparency) and enhancing the global organization of open windows (zooming tovirtual desktops,desktop cube,Exposé, etc.) The proof-of-conceptBumpTop desktop combines a physical representation of documents with tools fordocument classification possible only in the simulated environment, like instant reordering and automated grouping of related documents.
These effects are popularized thanks to the widespread use of 3D video cards (mainly due to gaming) which allow for complex visual processing with low CPU use, using the 3D acceleration in most modern graphics cards to render the application clients in a 3D scene. The application window is drawn off-screen in a pixel buffer, and the graphics card renders it into the 3D scene.[47]
This can have the advantage of moving some of the window rendering to theGPU on the graphics card and thus reducing the load on the mainCPU, but the facilities that allow this must be available on the graphics card to be able to take advantage of this.
Examples of 3D user-interface software includeXgl andCompiz fromNovell, andAIGLX bundled withRed Hat/Fedora.Quartz Extreme formacOS andWindows 7 andVista'sAero interface use 3D rendering forshading and transparency effects as well asExposé andWindows Flip and Flip 3D, respectively.Windows Vista usesDirect3D to accomplish this, whereas the other interfaces useOpenGL.
Thenotebook interface is widely used indata science and other areas of research. Notebooks allow users to mix text, calculations, and graphs in the same interface which was previously impossible with acommand-line interface.
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Virtual reality devices such as theOculus Rift and Sony'sPlayStation VR (formerly Project Morpheus)[48] aim to provide users withpresence, a perception of full immersion into a virtual environment.
{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)Admittedly it wasn't until RISC OS Select was released, almost 10 years later, that the standard Acorn applications (Draw, Edit, and Paint) implemented the style guide's clipboard recommendations, but most products followed it with care.
Many of the UI concepts that we take for granted were first pioneered in RISC OS, for instance: scalable anti-aliased fonts and an operating system extendable by 'modules', while most of the PC world was still on Windows 3.0.
Only with Mac OS X did any mainstream graphical interface provide the smoothly rendered, fractionally spaced type that Acorn accomplished in 1992 or earlier.
[…] in 1987, the UK-based company Acorn Computers introduced their […] GUI, called "Arthur", also was the first to feature anti-aliased display of on-screen fonts, even in 16-color mode!
[…] it was RISC OS that had the first system-wide, intricate […] font rendering in operating systems.
[ArcDraw] can also add text in multiple sizes and fonts to a drawing (including anti-aliased fonts)
the iPad could finally spark demand for the hitherto unsuccessful tablet PC