- accelerator
- See hotkey.
- active window
- The window that currently has focus.
- backdrop
- An image that's displayed as a background on your screen.
- balloon
- A small box that pops up to define or explain part of the
user interface. A balloon is displayed when the pointer pauses
over a widget.
- bitmap
- A color picture consisting of one or more bitplanes.
- bitplane
- An array of bits representing pixels of a single color in a
bitmap.
- Common User Access
- See CUA.
- compose sequence
- A sequence of key presses that can be used to type a character that
might not appear on the keyboard.
- console
- One of nine virtual screens on the desktop.
Also called a workspace.
- CUA
- Common User Access - a standard that defines how you can change
keyboard focus.
- cursor
- An indicator of a position on a screen, such as a pointer
or an insertion point in a text field.
- DayMinder
- A Photon application that you can use to organize your daily
schedule and activities.
- dead key
- A key that, when pressed, doesn't produce a symbol, but initiates a
compose sequence.
- desktop
- The virtual screen provided by the Photon Desktop Manager.
The desktop consists of nine consoles or workspaces.
- desktop manager
- See Photon Desktop Manager.
- dithering
- A process whereby pixels of two colors are combined to create
a texture or a blended color.
- ditto
- A QNX utility that lets you attach a local console or
terminal to a remote console.
See also phditto.
- File Manager
- The Photon File Manager (PFM), an application used to maintain and
organize files and directories.
- focus
- A widget that has focus will receive any key events
collected by its window.
- folder
- In the Photon File Manager, a metaphor for a directory.
- Helpviewer
- A Photon application for viewing online documentation.
- hotkey
- A special key or keychord that invokes an action (such as
a menu item) without actually selecting a widget.
Also called an accelerator.
Contrast keyboard shortcut.
- hotspot
- The part of the pointer that corresponds to the coordinates reported
for the pointer (e.g. the intersection of crosshairs, or the tip of
the arrow of the basic pointer).
- HSB
- Hue-Saturation-Brightness color model.
- HSV
- Hue-Saturation-Value color model.
- Image Viewer
- A Photon application (pv) that displays images.
- Jump Gate
- A mechanism that "transports" an application
from one QNX node to another.
- keyboard shortcut
- A key that selects a menu item. The shortcut works only if the
menu is displayed. Contrast hotkey.
- Message Pad
- A Photon application that lets you post notes on your computer's screen
or send them to other users over the network.
- palette
- An array of colors. A hard palette is in hardware;
a soft palette is in software.
- PDM
- See Photon Desktop Manager.
- PDR
- See Press-drag-release.
- PFM
- See Photon File Manager.
- PhAB
- Photon Application Builder. Visual design
tool that generates the code required to implement a user interface.
- phditto
- A utility that accesses the Photon workspace on a remote node.
See also ditto.
- Phindows
- Photon in Windows. An application that accesses
Photon from a Microsoft Windows environment.
- PhinX
- Photon in X. An application that accesses
Photon from an X Window System environment.
- Photon Desktop Manager (PDM)
- An application that provides a "control panel" that
lets you launch applications, move around the desktop, and change
the desktop's settings.
- Photon File Manager (PFM)
- An application used to maintain and organize files and directories.
- Photon Terminal
- An application (pterm) that emulates a character-mode
terminal in a Photon window.
- Photon Window Manager (PWM)
- An application that manages the appearance of window frames and
other objects on the screen. For example, the window manager adds
the resize bars, title bar, and various buttons to an application's
window. The window manager also provides a method of focusing
keyboard events.
- phsac
- A utility that displays system activity.
- pixmap
- A bitmap or image.
- pointer
- An object on the screen that tracks the position of a pointing
device (e.g. a mouse, tablet, track-ball, or joystick).
Photon has several pointers indicating various states: Basic, Busy,
Help, Move, Resize, I-beam, No-input.
- Press-drag-release (PDR)
- A method of selecting a menu item by pressing down a mouse button
while pointing to a menu button, dragging until the desired item is
highlighted, and releasing the mouse button.
- pterm
- A Photon Terminal; an application that emulates a character-mode
terminal in a Photon window.
- pv
- See Image Viewer.
- PWM
- See Photon Window Manager.
- Snapshot
- A Photon application for capturing images of the screen.
- table-of-contents (TOC) file
- In the Photon Helpviewer, a file that describes a
hierarchy of help topics.
- Taskbar
- An area in which the Photon Window Manager displays icons representing
the applications that are currently running.
- topic path
- Help information identified by a string of titles that are
separated by slashes.
- topic root
- A topic path that's used as a starting point for locating help topics.
- topic tree
- A hierarchy of help information.
- Unicode
- The ISO/IEC 10646 16-bit encoding scheme for representing
the characters used in most languages.
- UTF-8
- The encoding for Unicode characters, where each character is
represented by one, two, or three bytes.
- vsin
- A utility that displays system information.
- widget
- A component (e.g. a pushbutton) in a graphical user interface.
- Window Manager
- See Photon Window Manager.
- workspace
- See console.
- workspace menu
- A configurable menu that's displayed when you press or click
the right mouse button
while pointing at the background of the screen.