Vanishing windows: an approach to adaptive window management

Window management systems have been successful in assisting users in contro lling multiple applications but this success has been achieved at the expen se of an increased number of window management operations. Intelligent wind ow management is proposed as a way of reducing the number of such managemen t operations and a particular approach-the Vanishing Windows approach-is di scussed in detail. In this approach the inactive windows gradually shrink a nd move to the side. Choice of the basic design parameters is discussed and the reasons given for implementation decisions. Knowledge about simple geo metric reasoning is stored in the system. The system is evaluated against a traditional window management system and performance gains are demonstrate d. User opinion on the system is positive. Overall, the users did not find the system intrusive or feel that they had a lack of control. (C) 1999 Else vier Science B.V. All rights reserved.