on 2/8/2001 4:40 PM, Philip S Tellis at philip.tellis@iname.com wrote:
What is the difference between a workspace, a viewport and a desktop?
<disclaimer/>
To the best of my knowledge.
workspace: Some space for doing work. Generally, a workspace contains one or more related projects, each one having its own share of space. The "space" is conceptual; it could be on your filesystem, on your desk, or in your head.
viewport: A program's area of the screen. That's where the program draws. A viewport usually has its own co-ordinate system, which may be independent of the screen co-ordinate system. Sometimes, you have to translate from screen co-ordinates to viewport co-ordinates and vice versa.
desktop: The main area of the screen. The GUI environment draws within this area. When a window is maximised, it takes up the whole desktop (NOT the whole screen; the desktop may be smaller or larger than the screen). The desktop is the lowermost window in a windowing system. To see the whole desktop, you have to hide/close all other windows. The desktop is the parent of all windows.
Manish J.