The graphical system used by all UNIX-like operating systems, X
Window System, allows you to have several windows on your
screen, with a different application running each in each
window. By itself, however, X Window System can only do very
low-level operations, so it is always used in conjunction with
another piece of software, called window manager. A window
manager provides windows' borders and buttons, allows you to
move, close, and resize windows, etc. Gnome can work with many
window managers. The most popular are:
Enlightenment and Sawfish (formerly known as
Sawmill). Each window manager can use many different styles of
window decorations and buttons (this is referred to as
"window manager theme"). Since it is impossible to
cover them all, in this section we only describe the default
window manager shipped with Gnome,
Sawfish, and its default theme
(MicroGUI). An example of the window border in
the MicroGUI theme is shown in Figure 2
Figure 2. Window Border in MicroGUI Style.
So, what can you do with windows?
Closing, minimizing, and maximizing windows
To close a window, click on the button with the
small yellow "x" in the right side of the window
border. If the application has any unsaved data, it will
prompt you to save it.
To maximize a window, i.e. make it fill the entire
screen (except for the part taken by the panels), click
on the button with small yellow "up"
arrow. Clicking on this arrow once again will restore
the window to its original size.
To minimize (hide or iconify) a window, click on the
button with small yellow "down" arrow. The
window will disappear from screen. However, it is not
lost forever — the application in this window continues
running, no data is lost — it is just temporarily
hidden. All minimized windows are shown in the tasklist
applet and can be restored as described below.
A convenient alternative to minimizing windows is
"shading" them. When you shade a window, it
"rolls up" into its own title bar, so the
title bar is the only part of the window left on
screen. To shade a window, double-click on the title
bar; to unshade, double-click again. Try it!
Raising and lowering windows
Windows on your screen can overlap, so that one of
the windows is "on top" of another. You can
"raise" a window (i.e., put it on top of
all others) by clicking on the window title bar. You can
also switch a window from raised to lowered and back by
clicking on the title bar with the middle mouse button, or by
clicking anywhere inside the window with the right mouse
button while holding down ALT key.
Focus
Of all the windows on your screen, only one is active
(in computer parlance, "focused"), which means
that anything you type on the keyboard will be sent to the
application running in that window. (It does not mean that the
applications in other windows are idle — they can
be running as well.) To help you see which window has
focus, the title bar of this window has different color
(left side is blue, as opposed to gray for all other
windows). To change focus to another window, just click
anywhere in this window. You can also click in the
window title bar to focus and raise the window
simultaneously.
Moving and resizing windows
To move a window, drag its title bar to a new
location using left mouse button (i.e., click in the
title bar and move the mouse without releasing the
button). You can also move a window by clicking anywhere
inside the window while holding down the
ALT key.
To resize a window, place the mouse cursor on any of the
window borders (except the top one) or corners. The
mouse cursor will change to an arrow pushing a line or
corner, allowing you to drag the border or corner to a new
position.
All the windows on your desktop (including the minimized ones)
are shown in the tasklist, located
on your Panel. For each window, a mini-icon and beginning of
the window title is shown. To restore a minimized window, just click
on its title in the tasklist. Right-clicking on the window
title brings up the pop-up menu whihc
allows you to shade a window, close it, or kill the
application running in the window. The last option should only
be used when an application is frozen and does not respond to
"close window" command. If you kill an
application, you lose all unsaved data!
Sawfish also provides a menu for
each window; this menu contains all the operations for this
window described above, and then some. To access this menu,
click on the button in the left side of the window title bar
(with the small triangle pointing down). You can also invoke
this menu by right-clicking in the window title or clicking
anywhere in the window with the middle mouse button while holding
down the ALT key.
Finally, Sawfish also provides a
"desktop menu"; it can be accessed by clicking on any
empty space of the desktop with the middle mouse button. It
contains the following options:
Windows
Provides list of all windows, including minimized
ones. Selecting one of these windows restores it (if it
was minimized) and raises it over other windows. Very
convenient if you have so many windows that the one you
need is completely covered by others.
Workspaces
Allows you to switch from one workspace to another,
create and delete workspaces. See
Sawfish manual for details.
Programs
Same as Programs section
of the Main Menu.
Customize
Allows the user to customize all properties of the
Sawfish behavior. For a new
user, we recommend trying various
Appearance settings, but leaving
all other subsections alone.
Help
Provides links to Sawfish web
page, Sawfish manual (beware:
this is not a user's manual but rather a manual for
people who write extensions/customizations to
Sawfish using LISP
programming language), link to Gnome Users
Guide, and to Gnome Web
site.