haiku/docs/welcome/gui.html
François Revol 2bd9dd82a6 Unix is a name, should be capitalized. (it's actually a trademark too)
git-svn-id: file:///srv/svn/repos/haiku/haiku/trunk@27933 a95241bf-73f2-0310-859d-f6bbb57e9c96
2008-10-08 23:30:53 +00:00

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<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN">
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<meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8">
<title>Haiku's GUI</title>
<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="welcome.css">
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<body lang="en-US">
<div class="logo">
<img src="welcome-images/logo.png" alt="logo">
<div class="title">Haiku's GUI</div>
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<p>
<a href="welcome.html">Welcome</a>
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
Next: <a href="workspaces.html">Workspaces</a>
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<div class="content">
<h2>Haiku's GUI</h2>
<p>Haiku's graphical user interface is an integral part of the system. Unlike Unix-based operating systems, there's no separate window manager and booting just into a command line shell is not possible. Haiku's focus being on the desktop user, this is just not considered necessary.
</p><p>As you probably have experience with other graphical environments, let's skip over the standards like menus, right-click context menus, drag&drop etc. Let's have a look at the few unique aspects of Haiku's GUI instead.</p>
</p><br>
<p>Before we start with that, there's one more thing you'll probably run into quite quickly: By default, Haiku's option key, to invoke commands from menus for example, is not the usual <tt>CTRL</tt> key, but <tt>ALT</tt> instead. This has historical reasons, because the BeOS was inspired somewhat by MacOS. After you get used to it, it actually feels better as e.g. <tt>ALT+C</tt> and <tt>ALT+V</tt> is reached more conveniently on the keyboard and these commands seemlessly integrate into the <acronym title="Bourne Again Shell">bash</acronym> shell of the Terminal.
</p><p>In any case, you can switch to the maybe more familiar <tt>CTRL</tt> key in the <i>Menu</i> preferences.
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<br />
<img src="gui-images/gui.png" alt="gui.png" width="644" height="404"
</p><p><br />
There are only a few things in Haiku's GUI that aren't obvious and deserve an explanation.
</p><p>
[1] The Deskbar is Haiku's "Start" menu and taskbar, if you will. See topic <a href="deskbar.html">Deskbar</a>.<br>
[2] The yellow tab offers more than just a program's name or a document's filename:<ul><li>You can move it by holding the <tt>SHIFT</tt> key while dragging it to another position, enabling you to stack a number of windows and conveniently access them by their named tab.</li>
<li>You minimize a window with a double-click on its tab. A such hidden window can be accessed by its entry in the <a href="deskbar.html">Deskbar</a> or the <a href="twitcher.html">Twitcher</a>.</li>
<li>You can send a window to the back with a right-click on its tab (or its border).</li></ul>
[3] The close button.<br>
[4] The "alternative size" button (expands window to full screen in most applications).<br>
[5] The resize button. Dragging anywhere else on a window's border will move the window.<br>
</p><p>That's pretty much all there is to Haiku's GUI widgets in general. You'll find more information in <a href="welcome.html#system">Getting to know the system</a>.
</p>
</div>
<div class="bottomnav">
<p>
<a href="welcome.html">Welcome</a>
&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;
Next: <a href="workspaces.html">Workspaces</a>
</p>
</div>
</body>
</html>