What is the correct nomenclature?

In AmigaOS, we refer to windows as "Drawers". In AmigaOS wbpattern prefs it refers to them as "Windows".

Is this an error, or are my long held beliefs incorrect?

@ddni
I would say you are incorrect.

AmigaOS refers to *folders* as "drawers". And a Workbench window is usually showing you a folder (i.e. drawer), so I can see how the confusion might arise.

BTW, AmigaOS a traditionally uses slightly different GUI metaphor than Windows or Mac: Workbench (not Desktop), Drawer (not Folder), HD Toolbox (not Disk Management or whatever), etc.

@ChrisH

ahh I see. I have always referred to my Amiga "windows" as Drawers. I picture them as open drawers with my stuff inside them... Could never get how a window could hold my stuff.

@ddni
If you examine SDK file corresponding to the <intuition/intuition.h> C header, you will find it contains the definition of a "Window" (struct) that is used to describe every window on every Amiga screen (e.g. position, width, height, etc). That will have been basically unchanged since at least AmigaOS 2.x days, if not 1.x days.

OK, so we had Windows before windows!? Neat.

@ddni

Quote:

Windows is named after the GUI "windows" it uses. It goes back to the very first WIMP interface. The "W" in "WIMP" is for "Window".

AmigaOS has a WIMP interface, so naturally we get Windows, Icons, Menus and Pointers. It's somewhat interesting that Windows still insists on calling a Pointer a Cursor, something which harks back to the DOS days, when the mouse pointer would merely be a character block like a cursor.

If the Amiga made windows the right way before everybody else why can't it call it windows? because of a corporation's desire for monopoly over words as supposedly marketing issue? I say computing done the right way triumphs over marketing and this comes from a mere user. Similarly, I remember using desktop for a long time and the term "desktop computer", while Workbench was the AmigaOS back then and of course it is my system drawer's name right now

@Srtest

Nobody is preventing anyone from calling a window a window.

Best regards,

Niels

@ChrisH

unchanged from 2.x(introduction of extended options without changing the 1.x core structure)

afaik

@Chris

hmmm... I was taught many years ago that W.I.M.P. meant "Windows, Icons, Mouse & Pull down menus" then later on it changed to "Windows Invades My Privacy", a bit later invades was changed to invalidates iirc.

@ddni

Think of you hardrive as and office, a partition is a filing cabinet and that contains drawers (which way back when, didn't look anything like a certain fruity companies folders but didn't stop them trying a court case though).
but these are magic drawers as you can put drawers inside drawers. A window is jusuy something you can 'look through' to see something, whether it's the contents of a folder or a running program. even the workbench screen is a window even though 99.9% of people turn off the borders and forget it even had them. As for screens, think of them as walls to put windows into...

I think what makes it a little bit confusing regarding the WBPattern prefs is that it may refer to image placement as in "Windows" rather than "Drawers". The windows it's talking about however are the windows under Workbench's control, which are only really ever used to show the contents of drawers.

@Severin

I've heard it both ways, however given that a mouse isn't a GUI element, and the "pull-down" part seems needlessly restrictive, I tend to subscribe to "Menus Pointer" being the correct form.

@Daedalus

Quote:Well, note that the name of the program is WBPattern, not just Pattern. This signifies that its scope is limited to Workbench. And in Workbench, windows are more or less exclusively used to display the contents of drawers.

The images in question are used for the background of the windows, i.e. an element in the display of that content, not a part of the (drawer) content itself.

Best regards,

Niels