Presentation Manager Components

The OS/2 Presentation Manager user interface was introduced in OS/2 Version 1.1, replacing the textual interface provided by OS/2 Version 1.0. Presentation Manager provides a graphical, windowed presentation environment that lets a user execute and view multiple applications on the screen at the same time. The user can interact with those applications using an event-driven, object-action user interface which conforms to the guidelines laid down in the IBM Systems Application Architecture CUA Advanced Guide to User Interface Design.

The Systems Application Architecture CUA component has two major objectives:

To provide a consistent interface to applications, in order that users may more easily interact with a variety of applications and operating system environments without the need to learn and remember a different set of interface rules and guidelines for each application or system.

To implement the aforementioned consistency objective in such a way that the interface to applications is highly intuitive, in order to minimize the amount of formal application training required by affording an easy to use interface which encourages users to learn by exploration.

Both of these objectives can be fulfilled by the Presentation Manager components. This chapter will outline some of the major features of the Presentation Manager user interface, for those readers who may be unfamiliar with it.

The Workplace Shell is not a complete implementation of the CUA 91 Workplace Environment. Differences are discussed in CUA Conformance in the Workplace Shell. /In this chapter, we use standard Presentation Manager terminology. This is consistent with the terminology used in the accompanying OS/2 Version 2.0 - Volume 4: Application Development. It is also more correct than using CUA terminology with objects which are not CUA-compliant.

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