Workplace Shell

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Workplace Shell ( WPS ) together with and based on the Presentation Manager forms the object-oriented graphical user interface of the operating system IBM OS / 2 from version 2.00.

At the time of its inception, the WPS was groundbreaking. However, many new users found the different concept and variety of functions to be too complicated, which earned OS / 2 a reputation for being difficult to use. In the course of time, a number of WPS concepts and functions have gradually been adopted in graphical user interfaces of other operating systems, for example KDE and Gnome for Unix- like systems as well as Windows .

Object orientation

The object-oriented concept of the WPS can be seen in several areas of operation:

Sub-components of the system, drives , files and directories , printers and references to programs are mapped as objects and can be manipulated using context menus and drag-and-drop operations. In this way, z. B. copy files as well as adjust fonts and colors in windows .

The document- oriented approach is also characteristic. Instead of starting an application and creating new documents from there and editing existing ones, applications are started with the document. So-called templates with no or prefabricated content can be used to create new documents. Types of documents can each be linked to several applications, so that it is possible to choose which application should be used to open the document.

When the help function is called, information on the currently selected object or menu item is displayed.

The object orientation is also evident in the internal structure of the Workplace Shell, which is implemented using the System Object Model (SOM). It consists of a hierarchical tree of WPS classes , each of which implements the properties and manipulation options of the individual object types. The concepts of inheritance and replacement are particularly important here. These enable developers to add new components and applications and to expand, change or even completely replace existing ones without knowing the WPS source code. The most prominent examples of this technology are the open source projects XWorkplace, which comprehensively expands the actual user interface, and Audio / Data CD Creator, software for burning CDs and DVDs that is integrated into the system.

history

The WPS was introduced with OS / 2 2.0 and replaced the desktop manager from version 1.1, which was very similar in appearance and function to the program manager of older Windows versions up to 3.11. With the appearance of new versions of the operating system, there was also a revision of the appearance and an expansion of the function. With OS / 2 2.1, for example, the Multimedia Presentation Manager (MMPM / 2) was introduced, which offers system-wide support for various image, audio and video formats. In OS / 2 Warp Version 4 the MMPM / 2 and the integration of the network components were improved and a voice control called VoiceType was introduced.

As of version 1.1, eComStation contains a version of the open source software XWorkplace with reduced functionality, and as of version 1.2, large parts of the multimedia subsystem have been replaced and functionally expanded.

swell

  1. ↑ http://www.xworkplace.org
  2. ↑ Archived copy ( memento of the original dated October 11, 2004 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.os2world.com

literature