Windows Controls

Fundamentals of Windows Controls

Introduction

To make your interaction with the computer more useful, the Microsoft Windows operating systems provide various types of objects also called windows. Some of these windows are standard and can be seen in many applications. Some other windows can appear more complex as the companies that develop them are creative. Regardless, there are basic functionalities that most windows share. Therefore, before starting to get creative with the computer, you should be familiar with what is already available and get used to as many features as possible with the computer.
The major categories of what you and I call windows come in four families: A dialog box, a Single Document Interface (SDI), a Multiple Document Interface (MDI), and the Windows Controls. To explore them, we will not necessarily proceed in that order. But we will eventually see all of them as we move along.

Control's Focus

The focus is a visual aspect that indicates that a control is ready to receive input from you. Various controls

have different ways of expressing that they have received focus.

Button-based controls indicate that they have focus by drawing a dotted rectangle around their text. In the following picture, the button on the right has focus:

A text-based control indicates that it has focus by displaying a blinking cursor. A list-based control indicates that it has focus when one of its items has a surrounding dotted rectangle:
To give focus to a control, you can click it. Alternatively, if the focus is already on one of the controls, to give focus to a particular control, you can press Tab continuously until the control shows that it has focus. On a browser, if you press Tab continuously, the focus would move from one link or control to another. This means that a link on a web page can receive focus as if it were a control.