GUI ScreenIO for Windows

 ScreenIO.com


An Overview of Windows

Properly designed Windows applications are very easy to use – much more so than their DOS ancestors.

Consistency

The principal attraction of Microsoft Windows is its consistent user interface; unlike the old DOS days, when every application had a different look and feel, all Windows applications look and feel about the same.  This is a tremendous benefit to users; they don’t need to learn a new interface for each application they use.  

Windows applications are quite predictable; you can expect to find certain elements (menus, title bars, status bars, etc.) in the same place from one application to the next.  

Internationalization

Windows makes it much easier to internationalize your application; in most cases, data is automatically displayed according to the conventions of the user's locale.  This relieves you of the need to handle differences in how dates or numbers are displayed in different countries; it's automatic!

Multiple language support

GUI ScreenIO even goes beyond what Windows offers; if you translate translate the text in your GUI ScreenIO application to other languages, your users can switch languages while your application is running!  

Hardware Independence

Windows applications are not generally sensitive to the underlying hardware.  If a computer will run Windows, it'll run your GUI ScreenIO application.

Window Placement and Sizing

The user can move and resize your application's window, and if the window isn't large enough to display all of the elements, Windows will provide scrollbars that make it easy for the user to move around in the window.

GUI ScreenIO will save your user's window size and layout for your application, and restore them the next time the application is launched.

Controls

Windows also provides standardized "controls" for data entry; checkboxes, radiobuttons, edit controls, and so forth.  Once a user is familiar with how these controls work, he/she can expect that they work the same way in any Windows application.  

Copy/Paste Functionality

Other Windows facilities such as copy/paste make it easy to copy text or other elements from one field to another.  These facilities are an integral part of the Windows interface, and are available in virtually all Windows applications, including GUI ScreenIO.

Standardized Keyboard Interface

Windows applications also assign standard behavior to certain keyboard shortcuts; for example, pressing the F1 key will launch the application Help, if it exists.  Alt+F4 will close an application.  Enter will select the default button, if one is defined.

Designing Your GUI ScreenIO Application

Users become familiar with all of these standardized behaviors, and as a result, find it much easier to use well-designed Windows applications.  You should bear this in mind when you design your application; as a rule, you should not modify the standardized Windows behavior.  It will just confuse people and make it more difficult to learn to use your application.


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