Recent from talks
Icon bar
Knowledge base stats:
Talk channels stats:
Members stats:
Icon bar
In computing, the icon bar is the name of the dock in Acorn's RISC OS operating system, and is fundamental to the OS. Its introduction in 1987 (as part of Arthur, the predecessor to RISC OS) was a new concept in GUIs. It displays icons through which access is provided to all parts of the computer that a typical user will require, from physical devices and system utilities to running applications, and will usually be their starting point for interacting with the system once it has finished booting.
The bar is fixed in height and located at the bottom of the screen. It takes up the full width of the screen, and a single row of icons is displayed within. Icons are either justified to the left or the right edge of the screen, at the control of the owning program. According to Acorn's official RISC OS Style Guide, a program should place its icons to the left hand side of the icon bar if they relate to physical devices or resources such as filing systems. These will have an item of text underneath them identifying the device or resource. All other icons should be placed on the right of the bar. If too many icons are present to be displayed at once then the icon bar will extend horizontally and become wider than the screen; in order to access the non-visible icons the user must scroll the bar by hovering the mouse pointer at the appropriate edge of the screen.
The result of clicking the left mouse button (known as the Select button) on an icon will vary depending on what the icon represents. For filing systems, a filer window will open containing the contents of the root directory. For document-oriented applications supporting multiple open documents, clicking Select will open a window containing a new, empty document. This is different from the behaviour of the typical Taskbar and Dock, where clicking an icon will result in a task switch (All windows associated with the icon will be brought to the front of the window stack and will gain input focus). For programs that do not support multiple open documents, clicking its icon will typically result in the task switch behaviour.
By pressing the middle (Menu) mouse button while the pointer is over an icon, a context-sensitive menu associated with that icon will open. Although the owner of the icon is responsible for the contents of the menu, the menus for icons with similar functions will typically contain the same subset of options. For example, filing systems will allow the naming and formatting of disks, as well as an option to open a window displaying free space. Most applications will provide access to an Info window (displaying the version number and copyright information), online help, and a quit option.
Drag and Drop, Filer Icons (File or Directory) can be dragged and dropped on top of an icon bar icon to initiate a process, if the object type is known to the application. For example:
Even if there are no running applications or active filing systems, the icon bar will contain a small number of system-managed icons:
In RISC OS 3 the AddTinyDir star command was introduced, which allows an icon for any file, folder or application to be added to the left-hand side of the icon bar. This provides functionality similar to that later embodied in the Mac OS X dock.
The icon bar first appeared in the Arthur operating system, in 1987. To the right was an Exit icon, which provided an exit to the command line (later to be replaced by the Task Manager). In keeping with the operating system as a whole, the icon bar reflected the multicolour appearance, being orange in colour
Hub AI
Icon bar AI simulator
(@Icon bar_simulator)
Icon bar
In computing, the icon bar is the name of the dock in Acorn's RISC OS operating system, and is fundamental to the OS. Its introduction in 1987 (as part of Arthur, the predecessor to RISC OS) was a new concept in GUIs. It displays icons through which access is provided to all parts of the computer that a typical user will require, from physical devices and system utilities to running applications, and will usually be their starting point for interacting with the system once it has finished booting.
The bar is fixed in height and located at the bottom of the screen. It takes up the full width of the screen, and a single row of icons is displayed within. Icons are either justified to the left or the right edge of the screen, at the control of the owning program. According to Acorn's official RISC OS Style Guide, a program should place its icons to the left hand side of the icon bar if they relate to physical devices or resources such as filing systems. These will have an item of text underneath them identifying the device or resource. All other icons should be placed on the right of the bar. If too many icons are present to be displayed at once then the icon bar will extend horizontally and become wider than the screen; in order to access the non-visible icons the user must scroll the bar by hovering the mouse pointer at the appropriate edge of the screen.
The result of clicking the left mouse button (known as the Select button) on an icon will vary depending on what the icon represents. For filing systems, a filer window will open containing the contents of the root directory. For document-oriented applications supporting multiple open documents, clicking Select will open a window containing a new, empty document. This is different from the behaviour of the typical Taskbar and Dock, where clicking an icon will result in a task switch (All windows associated with the icon will be brought to the front of the window stack and will gain input focus). For programs that do not support multiple open documents, clicking its icon will typically result in the task switch behaviour.
By pressing the middle (Menu) mouse button while the pointer is over an icon, a context-sensitive menu associated with that icon will open. Although the owner of the icon is responsible for the contents of the menu, the menus for icons with similar functions will typically contain the same subset of options. For example, filing systems will allow the naming and formatting of disks, as well as an option to open a window displaying free space. Most applications will provide access to an Info window (displaying the version number and copyright information), online help, and a quit option.
Drag and Drop, Filer Icons (File or Directory) can be dragged and dropped on top of an icon bar icon to initiate a process, if the object type is known to the application. For example:
Even if there are no running applications or active filing systems, the icon bar will contain a small number of system-managed icons:
In RISC OS 3 the AddTinyDir star command was introduced, which allows an icon for any file, folder or application to be added to the left-hand side of the icon bar. This provides functionality similar to that later embodied in the Mac OS X dock.
The icon bar first appeared in the Arthur operating system, in 1987. To the right was an Exit icon, which provided an exit to the command line (later to be replaced by the Task Manager). In keeping with the operating system as a whole, the icon bar reflected the multicolour appearance, being orange in colour