Icons, small pictures representing available objects, sit directly on the desktop. To select a disk, folder, application, or document, the user selects the corresponding icon, rather than having to type the name of the object it represents.
When a disk icon is selected, it can be opened to become a window, which also appears to rest on the desktop. The window presents a surface of its own, where the user sees icons representing the folders, documents and applications that the disk contains. The user can open a number of disk windows on the desktop and view their contents simultaneously.
The Finder is the application that controls the desktop, provides a view of available documents and applications, and lets the user organize, copy, move, rename and delete them. The Finder also lets the user launch an application, which typically opens up its own window. An application is launched by opening either the application icon itself, or the icon for a document or stationery template created with that application.
A window is a frame for viewing something, as determined by the application. Windows may be arranged and sized on the desktop by the user. Because windows can overlap, users can ``set aside'' information yet still have ready access to it.
Manipulating windows - moving them, overlapping them, resizing them - does not affect the content of the window, on the user's view of it. This lets users tailor their work environment without fundamentally changing the elements in this environment.
Standard windows have:
There are very standard conventions for opening, closing, moving, sizing, scrolling, and zooming windows. No matter what application is being used, users know how to control the appearance of windows on the screen, and how to adjust the workspace for particular tasks and to their tastes.
When a user manipulates windows on the screen, visual feedback is immediate.
Special windows include:
Menus are central to the ``noun-verb'' principle of the Apple Desktop Interface: the user first selects an object (noun), either on the desktop or in a window, then chooses from a menu, the operation (verb) to be applied to this object.
Pull-down menus present choices of available operations. The user's task is recognition, not recall.
A single menu bar is presented at the top of the desktop which is changed from application to application but always includes (in order):
Items in the File and Edit menus appear in standard order for every application.