Window system

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The Display Server ( in the graph as Wayland Compositor referred to ) is a central component of a window system
Typical elements of a window ; The window decoration can either be drawn by the window manager (e.g. X11 ) or by a client (e.g. KWin ). The content of the window is always the domain of the client.
Window system- based graphical user interfaces have several components, e.g. B. Gnome shell on mother and X.Org server

A window system ( English windowing system ) is the base of a graphical user interface (GUI), whose main task managing program windows is. It is usually part of a larger desktop environment .

From the point of view of a programmer , the window system implements the basic graphic functions such as displaying fonts , drawing lines, curves and pixel graphics, and abstracting the graphics hardware ( graphics card ).

The window system allows the user to work with several programs at the same time by executing each program "in" one or more separate areas of the screen , the windows, which are usually rectangular , can be moved freely with the pointing device ( mouse ) and each other may overlap.

Some window systems, such as the X Window System in Unix-like environments, have advanced capabilities such as network transparency that allow the user to display the graphical interface of an application on another computer. The X Window System also does not implement a fixed appearance of the environment, which means that the window managers , GUI toolkits and desktop environments have complete freedom in terms of visual design and handling.

List of window systems

See also