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History of the graphical user interface

The history of the graphical user interface, understood as the use of graphic icons and a pointing device to control a computer, covers a five-decade span of incremental refinements, built on some constant core principles. Several vendors have created their own windowing systems based on independent code, but with basic elements in common that define the WIMP "window, icon, menu and pointing device" paradigm.

There have been important technological achievements, and enhancements to the general interaction in small steps over previous systems. There have been a few significant breakthroughs in terms of use, but the same organizational metaphors and interaction idioms are still in use. Desktop computers are often controlled by computer mice and/or keyboards while laptops often have a pointing stick or touchpad, and smartphones and tablet computers have a touchscreen. The influence of game computers and joystick operation has been omitted.

Early research and developments

Early dynamic information devices such as radar displays, where input devices were used for direct control of computer-created data, set the basis for later improvements of graphical interfaces. Some early cathode-ray-tube (CRT) screens used a light pen, rather than a mouse, as the pointing device.

The concept of a multi-panel windowing system was introduced by the first real-time graphic display systems for computers: the SAGE Project and Ivan Sutherland's Sketchpad.

Augmentation of Human Intellect (NLS)
In the 1960s, Douglas Engelbart's Augmentation of Human Intellect project at the Augmentation Research Center at SRI International in Menlo Park, California developed the oN-Line System (NLS). This computer incorporated a mouse-driven cursor and multiple windows used to work on hypertext. Engelbart had been inspired, in part, by the memex desk-based information machine suggested by Vannevar Bush in 1945.

Much of the early research was based on how young children learn. So, the design was based on the childlike characteristics of hand–eye coordination, rather than use of command languages, user-defined macro procedures, or automated transformation of data as later used by adult professionals.

Engelbart publicly demonstrated this work at the Association for Computing Machinery / Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (ACM/IEEE)—Computer Society's Fall Joint Computer Conference in San Francisco on December 9, 1968. It was so-called The Mother of All Demos.

Xerox PARC
Engelbart's work directly led to the advances at Xerox PARC. Several people went from SRI to Xerox PARC in the early 1970s. In 1973, Xerox PARC developed the Alto personal computer. It had a bitmapped screen, and was the first computer to demonstrate the desktop metaphor and graphical user interface (GUI). It was not a commercial product, but several thousand units were built and were heavily used at PARC, as well as other XEROX offices, and at several universities for many years. The Alto greatly influenced the design of personal computers during the late 1970s and early 1980s, notably the Three Rivers PERQ, the Apple Lisa and Macintosh, and the first Sun workstations.

The modern WIMP GUI was first developed at Xerox PARC by Alan Kay, Larry Tesler, Dan Ingalls, David Smith, Clarence Ellis and a number of other researchers. This was introduced in the Smalltalk programming environment. It used windows, icons, and menus (including the first fixed drop-down menu) to support commands such as opening files, deleting files, moving files, etc. In 1974, work began at PARC on Gypsy, the first bitmap What-You-See-Is-What-You-Get (WYSIWYG) cut and paste editor. In 1975, Xerox engineers demonstrated a Graphical User Interface "including icons and the first use of pop-up menus".

In 1981 Xerox introduced a pioneering product, Star, a workstation incorporating many of PARC's innovations. Although not commercially successful, Star greatly influenced future developments, for example at Apple, Microsoft and Sun Microsystems.

Quantel Paintbox
Released by digital imaging company Quantel in 1981, the Paintbox was a color graphical workstation with supporting of mouse input, but more oriented for graphics tablets; this model also was notable as one of the first systems with implementation of pop-up menus.

Blit
The Blit, a graphics terminal, was developed at Bell Labs in 1982.

Lisp machines, Symbolics
Lisp machines originally developed at MIT and later commercialized by Symbolics and other manufacturers, were early high-end single user computer workstations with advanced graphical user interfaces, windowing, and mouse as an input device. First workstations from Symbolics came to market in 1981, with more advanced designs in the subsequent years.

Lisa, Macintosh, and Apple II
Beginning in 1979, started by Steve Jobs and led by Jef Raskin, the Apple Lisa and Macintosh teams at Apple Computer (which included former members of the Xerox PARC group) continued to develop such ideas. The Lisa, released in 1983, featured a high-resolution stationery-based (document-centric) graphical interface atop an advanced hard disk based OS that featured such things as preemptive multitasking and graphically oriented inter-process communication. The comparatively simplified Macintosh, released in 1984 and designed to be lower in cost, was the first commercially successful product to use a multi-panel window interface. A desktop metaphor was used, in which files looked like pieces of paper, file directories looked like file folders, there were a set of desk accessories like a calculator, notepad, and alarm clock that the user could place around the screen as desired, and the user could delete files and folders by dragging them to a trash-can icon on the screen. The Macintosh, in contrast to the Lisa, used a program-centric rather than document-centric design. Apple revisited the document-centric design, in a limited manner, much later with OpenDoc.

There is still some controversy over the amount of influence that Xerox's PARC work, as opposed to previous academic research, had on the GUIs of the Apple Lisa and Macintosh, but it is clear that the influence was extensive, because first versions of Lisa GUIs even lacked icons. These prototype GUIs are at least mouse-driven, but completely ignored the WIMP ( "window, icon, menu, pointing device") concept. Screenshots of first GUIs of Apple Lisa prototypes show the early designs. Apple engineers visited the PARC facilities (Apple secured the rights for the visit by compensating Xerox with a pre-IPO purchase of Apple stock) and a number of PARC employees subsequently moved to Apple to work on the Lisa and Macintosh GUI. However, the Apple work extended PARC's considerably, adding manipulatable icons, and drag and drop manipulation of objects in the file system (see Macintosh Finder) for example. A list of the improvements made by Apple, beyond the PARC interface, can be read at Folklore.org. Jef Raskin warns that many of the reported facts in the history of the PARC and Macintosh development are inaccurate, distorted or even fabricated, due to the lack of usage by historians of direct primary sources.

In 1984, Apple released a television commercial which introduced the Apple Macintosh during the telecast of Super Bowl XVIII by CBS, with allusions to George Orwell's noted novel, Nineteen Eighty-Four. The commercial was aimed at making people think about computers, identifying the user-friendly interface as a personal computer which departed from previous business-oriented systems, and becoming a signature representation of Apple products.

In 1986, the Apple II was launched with 16-bit CPU and significantly improved graphics and audio. It shipped with a new operating system, Apple GS/OS, with a Finder-like GUI similar to the Macintosh series.

Agat
The Soviet Union Agat PC featured a graphical interface and a mouse device and was released in 1983.

SGI 1000 series and MEX
Founded 1982, SGI introduced the IRIS 1000 Series in 1983. The first graphical terminals (IRIS 1000) shipped in late 1983, and the corresponding workstation model (IRIS 1400) was released in mid-1984. The machines used an early version of the MEX windowing system on top of the GL2 Release 1 operating environment. Examples of the MEX user interface can be seen in a 1988 article in the journal "Computer Graphics", while earlier screenshots can not be found. The first commercial GUI-based systems, these did not find widespread use as to their (discounted) academic list price of $22,500 and $35,700 for the IRIS 1000 and IRIS 1400, respectively. However, these systems were commercially successful enough to start SGI's business as one of the main graphical workstation vendors. In later revisions of graphical workstations, SGI switched to the X window system, which had been developed starting at MIT since 1984 and which became the standard for UNIX workstations.

Visi On
VisiCorp's Visi On was a GUI designed to run on DOS for IBM PCs. It was released in December 1983. Visi On had many features of a modern GUI, and included a few that did not become common until many years later. It was fully mouse-driven, used a bit-mapped display for both text and graphics, included on-line help, and allowed the user to open a number of programs at once, each in its own window, and switch between them to multitask. Visi On did not, however, include a graphical file manager. Visi On also demanded a hard drive in order to implement its virtual memory system used for "fast switching", at a time when hard drives were very expensive.

GEM (Graphics Environment Manager)
Digital Research (DRI) created GEM as an add-on program for personal computers. GEM was developed to work with existing CP/M and MS-DOS compatible operating systems on business computers such as IBM PC compatibles. It was developed from DRI software, known as GSX, designed by a former PARC employee. Its similarity to the Macintosh desktop led to a copyright lawsuit from Apple Computer, and a settlement which involved some changes to GEM. This was to be the first of a series of "look and feel" lawsuits related to GUI design in the 1980s.

GEM received widespread use in the consumer market from 1985, when it was made the default user interface built into the Atari TOS operating system of the Atari ST line of personal computers. It was also bundled by other computer manufacturers and distributors, such as Amstrad. Later, it was distributed with the best-sold Digital Research version of DOS for IBM PC compatibles, the DR-DOS 6.0. The GEM desktop faded from the market with the withdrawal of the Atari ST line in 1992 and with the popularity of the Microsoft Windows 3.0 in the PC front around the same period of time. The Falcon030, released in 1993 was the last computer from Atari to use GEM.

DeskMate
Tandy's DeskMate appeared in the early 1980s on its TRS-80 machines and was ported to its Tandy 1000 range in 1984. Like most PC GUIs of the time, it depended on a disk operating system such as TRSDOS or MS-DOS. The application was popular at the time and included a number of programs like Draw, Text and Calendar, as well as attracting outside investment such as Lotus 1-2-3 for DeskMate.

MSX-View
MSX-View was developed for MSX computers by ASCII Corporation and HAL Laboratory. MSX-View contains software such as Page Edit, Page View, Page Link, VShell, VTed, VPaint and VDraw. An external version of the built-in MSX View of the Panasonic FS-A1GT was released as an add-on for the Panasonic FS-A1ST on disk instead of 512 KB ROM DISK.

Amiga Intuition and the Workbench
The Amiga computer was launched by Commodore in 1985 with a GUI called Workbench. Workbench was based on an internal engine developed mostly by RJ Mical, called Intuition, which drove all the input events. The first versions used a blue/orange/white/black default palette, which was selected for high contrast on televisions and composite monitors. Workbench presented directories as drawers to fit in with the "workbench" theme. Intuition was the widget and graphics library that made the GUI work. It was driven by user events through the mouse, keyboard, and other input devices.

Due to a mistake made by the Commodore sales department, the first floppies of AmigaOS (released with the Amiga1000) named the whole OS "Workbench". Since then, users and CBM itself referred to "Workbench" as the nickname for the whole AmigaOS (including Amiga DOS, Extras, etc.). This common consent ended with release of version 2.0 of AmigaOS, which re-introduced proper names to the installation floppies of AmigaDOS, Workbench, Extras, etc.

Starting with Workbench 1.0, AmigaOS treated the Workbench as a backdrop, borderless window sitting atop a blank screen. With the introduction of AmigaOS 2.0, however, the user was free to select whether the main Workbench window appeared as a normally layered window, complete with a border and scrollbars, through a menu item.

Amiga users were able to boot their computer into a command-line interface (also known as the CLI or Amiga Shell). This was a keyboard-based environment without the Workbench GUI. Later they could invoke it with the CLI/SHELL command "LoadWB" which loaded Workbench GUI.

One major difference between other OS's of the time (and for some time after) was the Amiga's fully multi-tasking operating system, a powerful built-in animation system using a hardware blitter and copper and four channels of 26 kHz 8-bit sampled sound. This made the Amiga the first multi-media computer years before other OS's.

Like most GUIs of the day, Amiga's Intuition followed Xerox's, and sometimes Apple's, lead. But a CLI was included which dramatically extended the functionality of the platform. However, the CLI/Shell of Amiga is not just a simple text-based interface like in MS-DOS, but another graphic process driven by Intuition, and with the same gadgets included in Amiga's graphics.library. The CLI/Shell interface integrates itself with the Workbench, sharing privileges with the GUI.

The Amiga Workbench evolved over the 1990s, even after Commodore's 1994 bankruptcy.

Acorn BBC Master Compact
Acorn's 8-bit BBC Master Compact shipped with Acorn's first public GUI interface in 1986. Little commercial software, beyond that included on the Welcome disk, was ever made available for the system, despite the claim by Acorn at the time that "the major software houses have worked with Acorn to make over 100 titles available on compilation discs at launch". The most avid supporter of the Master Compact appeared to be Superior Software, who produced and specifically labelled their games as 'Master Compact' compatible.

Arthur / RISC OS
RISC OS is a series of graphical user interface-based computer operating systems (OSes) designed for ARM architecture systems. It takes its name from the RISC (reduced instruction set computer) architecture supported. The OS was originally developed by Acorn Computers for use with their 1987 range of Archimedes personal computers using the Acorn RISC Machine (ARM) processors. It comprises a command-line interface and desktop environment with a windowing system.

Originally branded as the Arthur 1.20 the subsequent Arthur 2 release was shipped under the name RISC OS 2.

Desktop
The WIMP interface incorporates three mouse buttons (named Select, Menu and Adjust), context-sensitive menus, window stack control (i.e. send to back) and dynamic window focus (a window can have input focus at any position on the stack). The Icon bar (Dock) holds icons which represent mounted disc drives, RAM discs, network directories, running applications, system utilities and docked: Files, Directories or inactive Applications. These icons and open windows have context-sensitive menus and support drag-and-drop behaviour. They represent the running application as a whole, irrespective of whether it has open windows.

The application has control of the context-sensitive menus, inapplicable menu choices can be 'greyed out' to make them unavailable. Menus have their own titles and may be moved around the desktop by the user. Any menu can have further sub-menus or a new window for complicated choices.

The GUI is centered around the concept of files. The Filer displays the contents of a disc. Applications are run from the Filer view and files can be dragged to the Filer view from applications to perform saves. The opposite can perform a load. With their co-operation data can be copied or moved directly between applications by saving (dragging) to another application.

Application directories are used to store applications. The OS differentiates them from normal directories through the use of a pling (exclamation mark, also called shriek) prefix. Double-clicking on such a directory launches the application rather than opening the directory. The application's executable files and resources are contained within the directory, but normally they remain hidden from the user. Because applications are self-contained, this allows drag-and-drop installation and removal.

Files are normally typed. RISC OS has some predefined types. Applications can supplement the set of known types. Double-clicking a file with a known type will launch the appropriate application to load the file.

The RISC OS Style Guide encourages a consistent look and feel across applications. This was introduced in RISC OS 3 and specifies application appearance and behaviour. Acorn's own main bundled applications were not updated to comply with the guide until 's Select release in 2001.

Font manager
The outline fonts manager provides spatial anti-aliasing of fonts, the OS being the first operating system to include such a feature,   having included it since before January 1989. Since 1994, in RISC OS 3.5, it has been possible to use an outline anti-aliased font in the WindowManager for UI elements, rather than the bitmap system font from previous versions.

MS-DOS file managers and utility suites
Because most of the very early IBM PC and compatibles lacked any common true graphical capability (they used the 80-column basic text mode compatible with the original MDA display adapter), a series of file managers arose, including Microsoft's DOS Shell, which features typical GUI elements as menus, push buttons, lists with scrollbars and mouse pointer. The name text-based user interface was later invented to name this kind of interface. Many MS-DOS text mode applications, like the default text editor for MS-DOS 5.0 (and related tools, like QBasic), also used the same philosophy. The IBM DOS Shell included with IBM DOS 5.0 (circa 1992) supported both text display modes and actual graphics display modes, making it both a TUI and a GUI, depending on the chosen mode.

Advanced file managers for MS-DOS were able to redefine character shapes with EGA and better display adapters, giving some basic low resolution icons and graphical interface elements, including an arrow (instead of a coloured cell block) for the mouse pointer. When the display adapter lacks the ability to change the character's shapes, they default to the CP437 character set found in the adapter's ROM. Some popular utility suites for MS-DOS, as Norton Utilities (pictured) and PC Tools used these techniques as well.

DESQview was a text mode multitasking program introduced in July 1985. Running on top of MS-DOS, it allowed users to run multiple DOS programs concurrently in windows. It was the first program to bring multitasking and windowing capabilities to a DOS environment in which existing DOS programs could be used. DESQview was not a true GUI but offered certain components of one, such as resizable, overlapping windows and mouse pointing.

Applications under MS-DOS with proprietary GUIs
Before the MS-Windows age, and with the lack of a true common GUI under MS-DOS, most graphical applications which worked with EGA, VGA and better graphic cards had proprietary built-in GUIs. One of the best known such graphical applications was Deluxe Paint, a popular painting software with a typical WIMP interface.

The original Adobe Acrobat Reader executable file for MS-DOS was able to run on both the standard Windows 3.x GUI and the standard DOS command prompt. When it was launched from the command prompt, on a machine with a VGA graphics card, it provided its own GUI.

Microsoft Windows (16-bit versions)
Windows 1.0, a GUI for the MS-DOS operating system was released in 1985. The market's response was less than stellar. Windows 2.0 followed, but it wasn't until the 1990 launch of Windows 3.0, based on Common User Access that its popularity truly exploded. The GUI has seen minor redesigns since, mainly the networking enabled Windows 3.11 and its Win32s 32-bit patch. The 16-bit line of MS Windows were discontinued with the introduction of Windows 95 and Windows NT 32-bit based architecture in the 1990s. See the next section.

The main window of a given application can occupy the full screen in maximized status. The users must then to switch between maximized applications using the Alt+Tab keyboard shortcut; no alternative with the mouse except for de-maximize. When none of the running application windows are maximized, switching can be done by clicking on a partially visible window, as is the common way in other GUIs.

In 1988, Apple sued Microsoft for copyright infringement of the Lisa and Apple Macintosh GUI. The court case lasted 4 years before almost all of Apple's claims were denied on a contractual technicality. Subsequent appeals by Apple were also denied. Microsoft and Apple apparently entered a final, private settlement of the matter in 1997.

GEOS
GEOS was launched in 1986, originally written for the 8-bit home computer Commodore 64, and shortly after, the Apple II series. The name was later used by the company as PC/Geos for IBM PC systems, then Geoworks Ensemble. It came with several application programs like a calendar and word processor. A cut-down version served as the basis for America Online's DOS client. Compared to the competing Windows 3.0 GUI, it could run reasonably well on simpler hardware, but its developer had a restrictive policy towards third-party developers that prevented it from becoming a serious competitor. Additionally, it was targeted at 8-bit machines, whilst the 16-bit computer age was dawning.

The X Window System
The standard windowing system in the Unix world is the X Window System (commonly X11 or X), first released in the mid-1980s. The W Window System (1983) was the precursor to X; X was developed at MIT as Project Athena. Its original purpose was to allow users of the newly emerging graphic terminals to access remote graphics workstations without regard to the workstation's operating system or the hardware. Due largely to the availability of the source code used to write X, it has become the standard layer for management of graphical and input/output devices and for the building of both local and remote graphical interfaces on virtually all Unix, Linux and other Unix-like operating systems, with the notable exceptions of macOS and Android.

X allows a graphical terminal user to make use of remote resources on the network as if they were all located locally to the user by running a single module of software called the X server. The software running on the remote machine is called the client application. X's network transparency protocols allow the display and input portions of any application to be separated from the remainder of the application and 'served up' to any of a large number of remote users. X is available today as free software.

NeWS
The PostScript-based NeWS (Network extensible Window System) was developed by Sun Microsystems in the mid-1980s. For several years SunOS included a window system combining NeWS and the X Window System. Although NeWS was considered technically elegant by some commentators, Sun eventually dropped the product. Unlike X, NeWS was always proprietary software.

The 1990s: Mainstream usage of the desktop
The widespread adoption of the PC platform in homes and small businesses popularized computers among people with no formal training. This created a fast-growing market, opening an opportunity for commercial exploitation and of easy-to-use interfaces and making economically viable the incremental refinement of the existing GUIs for home systems.

Also, the spreading of high-color and true-color capabilities of display adapters providing thousands and millions of colors, along with faster CPUs and accelerated graphic cards, cheaper RAM, storage devices orders of magnitude larger (from megabytes to gigabytes) and larger bandwidth for telecom networking at lower cost helped to create an environment in which the common user was able to run complicated GUIs which began to favor aesthetics.

Windows 95 and "a computer in every home"
After Windows 3.11, Microsoft started development on a new consumer-oriented version of the operating system. Windows 95 was intended to integrate Microsoft's formerly separate MS-DOS and Windows products and included an enhanced version of DOS, often referred to as MS-DOS 7.0. It also featured a significant redesign of the GUI, dubbed "Cairo". While Cairo never really materialized, parts of Cairo found their way into subsequent versions of the operating system starting with Windows 95. Both Win95 and WinNT could run 32-bit applications, and could exploit the abilities of the Intel 80386 CPU, as the preemptive multitasking and up to 4 GiB of linear address memory space. Windows 95 was touted as a 32-bit based operating system but it was actually based on a hybrid kernel (VWIN32.VXD) with the 16-bit user interface (USER.EXE) and graphic device interface (GDI.EXE) of Windows for Workgroups (3.11), which had 16-bit kernel components with a 32-bit subsystem (USER32.DLL and GDI32.DLL) that allowed it to run native 16-bit applications as well as 32-bit applications. In the marketplace, Windows 95 was an unqualified success, promoting a general upgrade to 32-bit technology, and within a year or two of its release had become the most successful operating system ever produced.

Accompanied by an extensive marketing campaign, Windows 95 was a major success in the marketplace at launch and shortly became the most popular desktop operating system.

Windows 95 saw the beginning of the browser wars, when the World Wide Web began receiving a great deal of attention in popular culture and mass media. Microsoft at first did not see potential in the Web, and Windows 95 was shipped with Microsoft's own online service called The Microsoft Network, which was dial-up only and was used primarily for its own content, not internet access. As versions of Netscape Navigator and Internet Explorer were released at a rapid pace over the following few years, Microsoft used its desktop dominance to push its browser and shape the ecology of the web mainly as a monoculture.

Windows 95 evolved through the years into Windows 98 and Windows ME. Windows ME was the last in the line of the Windows 3.x-based operating systems from Microsoft. Windows underwent a parallel 32-bit evolutionary path, where Windows NT 3.1 was released in 1993. Windows NT (for New Technology) was a native 32-bit operating system with a new driver model, was unicode-based, and provided for true separation between applications. Windows NT also supported 16-bit applications in an NTVDM, but it did not support VxD based drivers. Windows 95 was supposed to be released before 1993 as the predecessor to Windows NT. The idea was to promote the development of 32-bit applications with backward compatibility – leading the way for more successful NT release. After multiple delays, Windows 95 was released without unicode and used the VxD driver model. Windows NT 3.1 evolved to Windows NT 3.5, 3.51 and then 4.0 when it finally shared a similar interface with its Windows 9x desktop counterpart and included a Start button. The evolution continued with Windows 2000, Windows XP, Windows Vista, then Windows 7. Windows XP and higher were also made available in 64-bit modes. Windows server products branched off with the introduction of Windows Server 2003 (available in 32-bit and 64-bit IA64 or x64), then Windows Server 2008 and then Windows Server 2008 R2. Windows 2000 and XP shared the same basic GUI although XP introduced Visual Styles. With Windows 98, the Active Desktop theme was introduced, allowing an HTML approach for the desktop, but this feature was coldly received by customers, who frequently disabled it. At the end, Windows Vista definitively discontinued it, but put a new SideBar on the desktop.

Mac OS
The Macintosh's GUI has been revised multiple times since 1984, with major updates including System 7 and Mac OS 8. It underwent its largest revision to date with the introduction of the "Aqua" interface in 2001's Mac OS X. It was a new operating system built primarily on technology from NeXTSTEP with UI elements of the original Mac OS grafted on. macOS uses a technology known as Quartz, for graphics rendering and drawing on-screen. Some interface features of macOS are inherited from NeXTSTEP (such as the Dock, the automatic wait cursor, or double-buffered windows giving a solid appearance and flicker-free window redraws), while others are inherited from the old Mac OS operating system (the single system-wide menu-bar). Mac OS X 10.3 introduced features to improve usability including Exposé, which is designed to make finding open windows easier.

With Mac OS X 10.4 released in April 2005, new features were added, including Dashboard (a virtual alternate desktop for mini specific-purpose applications) and a search tool called Spotlight, which provides users with an option for searching through files instead of browsing through folders.

With Mac OS X 10.7 released in July 2011, included support for full screen apps and Mac OS X 10.11 (El Capitan) released in September 2015 support creating a full screen split view by pressing the green button on left upper corner of the window or Control+Cmd+F keyboard shortcut.

GUIs built on the X Window System
In the early days of X Window development, Sun Microsystems and AT&T attempted to push for a GUI standard called OPEN LOOK in competition with Motif. OPEN LOOK was developed from scratch in conjunction with Xerox, while Motif was a collective effort. Motif eventually gained prominence and became the basis for Hewlett-Packard's Visual User Environment (VUE), which later became the Common Desktop Environment (CDE).

In the late 1990s, there was significant growth in the Unix world, especially among the free software community. New graphical desktop movements grew up around Linux and similar operating systems, based on the X Window System. A new emphasis on providing an integrated and uniform interface to the user brought about new desktop environments, such as KDE Plasma 5, GNOME and Xfce which have supplanted CDE in popularity on both Unix and Unix-like operating systems. The Xfce, KDE and GNOME look and feel each tend to undergo more rapid change and less codification than the earlier OPEN LOOK and Motif environments.

Amiga
Later releases added improvements over the original Workbench, like support for high-color Workbench screens, context menus, and embossed 2D icons with pseudo-3D aspect. Some Amiga users preferred alternative interfaces to standard Workbench, such as Directory Opus Magellan.

The use of improved, third-party GUI engines became common amongst users who preferred more attractive interfaces – such as Magic User Interface (MUI), and ReAction. These object-oriented graphic engines driven by user interface classes and methods were then standardized into the Amiga environment and changed Amiga Workbench to a complete and modern guided interface, with new standard gadgets, animated buttons, true 24-bit-color icons, increased use of wallpapers for screens and windows, alpha channel, transparencies and shadows as any modern GUI provides.

Modern derivatives of Workbench are Ambient for MorphOS, Scalos, Workbench for AmigaOS 4 and Wanderer for AROS. There is a brief article on Ambient and descriptions of MUI icons, menus and gadgets at aps.fr and images of Zune stay at main AROS site.

Use of object oriented graphic engines dramatically changes the look and feel of a GUI to match actual styleguides.

OS/2
Originally collaboratively developed by Microsoft and IBM to replace DOS, OS/2 version 1.0 (released in 1987) had no GUI at all. Version 1.1 (released 1988) included Presentation Manager (PM), an implementation of IBM Common User Access, which looked a lot like the later Windows 3.1 UI. After the split with Microsoft, IBM developed the Workplace Shell (WPS) for version 2.0 (released in 1992), a quite radical, object-oriented approach to GUIs. Microsoft later imitated much of this look in Windows 95.

NeXTSTEP
The NeXTSTEP user interface was used in the NeXT line of computers. NeXTSTEP's first major version was released in 1989. It used Display PostScript for its graphical underpinning. The NeXTSTEP interface's most significant feature was the Dock, carried with some modification into Mac OS X, and had other minor interface details that some found made it easier and more intuitive to use than previous GUIs. NeXTSTEP's GUI was the first to feature opaque dragging of windows in its user interface, on a comparatively weak machine by today's standards, ideally aided by high performance graphics hardware.

BeOS
BeOS was developed on custom AT&T Hobbit-based computers before switching to PowerPC hardware by a team led by former Apple executive Jean-Louis Gassée as an alternative to Mac OS. BeOS was later ported to Intel hardware. It used an object-oriented kernel written by Be, and did not use the X Window System, but a different GUI written from scratch. Much effort was spent by the developers to make it an efficient platform for multimedia applications. Be Inc. was acquired by PalmSource, Inc. (Palm Inc. at the time) in 2001. The BeOS GUI still lives in Haiku, an open-source software reimplementation of the BeOS.

Mobile devices
General Magic is the apparent parent of all modern smartphone GUI, i.e. touch-screen based including the iPhone et al. In 2007, with the iPhone and later in 2010 with the introduction of the iPad, Apple popularized the post-WIMP style of interaction for multi-touch screens, with those devices considered to be milestones in the development of mobile devices.

Other portable devices such as MP3 players and cell phones have been a burgeoning area of deployment for GUIs in recent years. Since the mid-2000s, a vast majority of portable devices have advanced to having high-screen resolutions and sizes. (The Galaxy Note 4's 2,560 × 1,440 pixel display is an example). Because of this, these devices have their own famed user interfaces and operating systems that have large homebrew communities dedicated to creating their own visual elements, such as icons, menus, wallpapers, and more. Post-WIMP interfaces are often used in these mobile devices, where the traditional pointing devices required by the desktop metaphor are not practical.

As high-powered graphics hardware draws considerable power and generates significant heat, many of the 3D effects developed between 2000 and 2010 are not practical on this class of device. This has led to the development of simpler interfaces making a design feature of two dimensionality such as exhibited by the Metro (Modern) UI first used in Windows 8 and the 2012 Gmail redesign.

3D user interface

In the first decade of the 21st century, the rapid development of GPUs led to a trend for the inclusion of 3D effects in window management. It is based in experimental research in user interface design trying to expand the expressive power of the existing toolkits in order to enhance the physical cues that allow for direct manipulation. New effects common to several projects are scale resizing and zooming, several windows transformations and animations (wobbly windows, smooth minimization to system tray...), composition of images (used for window drop shadows and transparency) and enhancing the global organization of open windows (zooming to virtual desktops, desktop cube, Exposé, etc.) The proof-of-concept BumpTop desktop combines a physical representation of documents with tools for document classification possible only in the simulated environment, like instant reordering and automated grouping of related documents.

These effects are popularized thanks to the widespread use of 3D video cards (mainly due to gaming) which allow for complex visual processing with low CPU use, using the 3D acceleration in most modern graphics cards to render the application clients in a 3D scene. The application window is drawn off-screen in a pixel buffer, and the graphics card renders it into the 3D scene.

This can have the advantage of moving some of the window rendering to the GPU on the graphics card and thus reducing the load on the main CPU, but the facilities that allow this must be available on the graphics card to be able to take advantage of this.

Examples of 3D user-interface software include Xgl and Compiz from Novell, and AIGLX bundled with Red Hat/Fedora. Quartz Extreme for macOS and Windows 7 and Vista's Aero interface use 3D rendering for shading and transparency effects as well as Exposé and Windows Flip and Flip 3D, respectively. Windows Vista uses Direct3D to accomplish this, whereas the other interfaces use OpenGL.

Notebook interface
The notebook interface is widely used in data science and other areas of research. Notebooks allow users to mix text, calculations, and graphs in the same interface which was previously impossible with a command-line interface.

Virtual reality and presence
Virtual reality devices such as the Oculus Rift and Sony's PlayStation VR (formerly Project Morpheus) aim to provide users with presence, a perception of full immersion into a virtual environment.

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: History of the graphical user interface


text:
Talk:Harry Potter/Archive 1

Witchcraft is good. If it stops US clergy buggering small kids I'm all for it.

Not sure where you get the idea that Hogwarts is in Scotland...can you explain please? JHK

If you travel north, you will see snape killing dumbledore

If you travel north on a train from King's Cross station for the length of time that the journey is, you will end up in Scotland. J. K. Rowling has confirmed this in an interview; see. This is never made explicit in the books, so perhaps it shouldn't be in the article. However, I would contend that it is wrong to say that Hogwarts is in England. I would accept 'Great Britain' as a compromise. Sjn28

Since Hogwarts can only really be reached by magic, I'm not sure normal rules of time and distance apply -- I think GB is better. JHK

There is an actual place where Muggles see a sign "Do not enter" or something. Havn't you read Hogwarts, a History? (-: I think it is good enough that it is implied in the books and J.K. Rowling confirms it. It means people who have read the book would learn something by coming here. Eean

But it isn't implied in the books. The fact that JK Rowling says that that particular train would end up in Scotland based on time traveled is kind of irrelevant, IMO. After all, none of the teachers (except perhaps, MacGonagall) seem particularly Scottish... However, as you will JHK

I've just remembered something else. In one of the Comic Relief books (Fabulous Beasts and Where To Find Them), the author mentions that a nest of horrific giant spiders (I forget the exact name) has been rumoured to exist in a forest in Scotland. There is an annotation by Harry (or Ron) that says "confirmed by Harry Potter and Ron Weasley". Presumably this refers to when they meet Aragog in Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. I'm sorry if this sounds vague, but I don't have my copies of the books with me. Could some kind person please check the reference for me? Thanks. Sjn28

Yep -- it's there at the end of the Acromantula entry. I just checked. JHK - Hagrid is also rather stereotypically Scottish.... --Paul Drye

I strengthened the Scotland bit because of this: "Hogwarts ... Logically it had to be set in a secluded place, and pretty soon I settled on Scotland in my mind." Fraser, L., An interview with J.K.Rowling, Mammoth, London, 2000. ISBN 0-7497-4394-8. pp 20-21. Nevilley 11:43 Jan 21, 2003 (UTC) (moved from way down there to this more relevant spot!)

The philosopher/sorceror change was I believe a marketing decision. Sorceror was more 'exciting' and apparently no-one in America has ever heard of the Philosopher's Stone

 * Sure, because of the pathetic state of US schools. It's sad really. And yes, I'm a product of US schooling. And yes, I have known what a philsopher's stone was for years. --Dante Alighieri

 * As a product of US schooling as well, I know what a philosopher's stone is. So apparently we aren't all as uneducated as it makes you feel good to believe.

 * I'm an Australian, and the only reason I even knew about the legend of the Philosopher's Stone (prior to Harry Potter) is because of a Carl Barks comic in which Scrooge McDuck sets out to find it. So some Americans are certainly aware of it. Andrewa 11:00 3 Jul 2003 (UTC)

- While we have all become accustomed to seeing pro-Harry Potter articles on Wikipedia, I can't recall ever having seen an article that talks about the negative side of Harry Potter. Namely, that the books and movies promote witchcraft, paganism, and godless materialism.

Despite what Harry Potter would have you believe, witchcraft is most definitely NOT "cool." I don't expect to change anybody's mind, but it would be nice to see just a LITTLE bit of balance here. Not all of the ideas that come from the minds of the creative Left are worth propogating, and if there was ever a concrete example of this, Harry Potter would be it.

 * Well, doesn't your argument presuppose that magic and/or witchcraft is REAL? Witchcraft can be neither cool nor uncool unless it exists. --Dante Alighieri

 * There are frequent references to witchcraft in the Bible, and the strong condemnations of such practices which we read there do not seem to be based so much upon the supposition of fraud as upon the abomination of the magic in itself. (See Deuteronomy 18:11-12; Exodus 22:18, wizards thou shalt not suffer to live - A.V. Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live.) The whole narrative of Saul's visit to the witch of En Dor (I Kings 28) implies the reality of the witch's evocation of the shade of Samuel; and from Leviticus 20:27: A man or woman in whom there is a pythonical or divining spirit, dying let them die: they shall stone them: Their blood be upon them, we should naturally infer that the divining spirit was not a mere imposture. The prohibitions of sorcery in the New Testament leave the same impression (Galatians 5:20, compared with Apocalypse 21:8; 22:15; and Acts 8:9; 13:6). Supposing that the belief in witchcraft were an idle superstition, it would be strange that the suggestion should nowhere be made that the evil of these practices only lay in the pretending to the possession of powers which did not really exist.

 * Without starting a HUGE argument, let me just say that the above argument presupposes the accuracy and the validity of the source material, The Bible. --Dante Alighieri

 * Of course the WORD of God is accurate. If you say one can be a Christian without the Bible, you have an equal claim of being Mohammedan.

 * I'm not going to touch this one except to say that the MODERN term that has replaced Mohammedan is Muslim, or, in a pinch, practiconer of Islam. --Dante Alighieri

 * I can't recall ever having seen an article that talks about the negative side of Harry Potter. - So why don't you write the NPOV article "objections to Harry Potter" and link it in? I am sure that such a thing could be interesting and informative - but if you wait for a bunch of HP fans to write it, you could be waiting a while ! :) Nevilley

 * What I don't understand is how this article is pro-witchcraft, and therefore lacking balance. It looks very balanced to me - doesn't make any value judgements of any kind that I can see, either about witchcraft being cool, or about the writing being any good. --Camembert

 * Yes but I suppose what the anon. person is saying is that there is not yet any coverage of the *fact* that it has been contraversial in some quarters. If it were possible to have a linked article examining this - without it becoming a propoganda piece for one point of view - wouldn't this be a good thing, in encyclopedic terms? :) Nevilley

 * Yes. Though I must admit, I wasn't aware there was any controversy about it. I must read the wrong newspapers (or have a short - or selective - memory)... --Camembert

 * People holding mass book burnings smacks of controversy to me. You most certainly MUST read the wrong papers. ;) --Dante Alighieri

 * Try searching for HP on Amazon.com - plenty of books re Christian response etc. It honestly is a real issue. 194.117.133.118

 * Hi 194, why not create an account? You're still anonymous/pseudonymous, but we have a name we can use, and a permanent user page. Use the "Log in" link to do so. --Eloquence 00:29 Nov 27, 2002 (UTC)

 * Fair enough. If there's an article to be written about it, I'm all for it. Looks like I might learn something :) --Camembert

 * If such an article is created, it shouldn't be called "Objections to Harry Potter" but rather "Controversy about the Harry Potter books", or something similar. We shouldn't have articles that only present one viewpoint, even if it's done in an NPOV way.--Eloquence

 * I definitely approve of the creation of such an article, but I also think there should a be at least a few sentences about it here, and not just a link. Tokerboy 00:21 Nov 27, 2002 (UTC)

"The Bible" is commonly understood to refer to a document, currently in print in many different versions, which DOES mandate that witches be put to death in it's text. This says nothing about what individual Christians want. Those who claim to follow the Bible literally perforce must approve of the execution of witches. More liberal interpretations surely obviate the necessity of killing witches, but that does not change what the text itself says. Exodus 22:18, in KJV, NIV and RSE all spell it out quite clearly. --Dante Alighieri

 * "The Bible" contains verses which some say mandate capital punishment, and verses which some say forbid it. It is therefore wrong to assert that just one of these is what "The Bible" says. Further discussion of suffering those who read Harry Potter to live belongs on another page, not the Harry Potter page. --  Someone else 01:32 Nov 27, 2002 (UTC)

 * You can sit there and write about how "The Bible" does not necessarily mandate that witches be executed as long as you like. It does not alter the text of the document(s) one bit. Feel free to object to my characterization. I've even changed it so that the reference is to Exodus 22:18 rather than the Bible as a whole. If you have a problem with what's in the Bible, I suggest you take it up with the Pope and the heads of the various Protestant faiths... although since we're talking about the Old Testament here, you might want to talk to a few Rabbis as well. --Dante Alighieri

 * I agree that the bible is contradictory on these matters, esp. New vs. Old Testament. However, even suggesting so can bring any god-fearing Christian up in arms -- it's all a natural flow and development! And it all coincidentally supports their belief system and no other! ;-) We should keep the article as it is now, or add a direct reference, but as SE said this is perhaps too detailed. --Eloquence

 * It's not too detailed. We're talking about controversy over the books, and Exodus 22:18 is the root of that controversy. How can we talk about one without mentioning the other? --Dante Alighieri

 * I have no problem with that, but when I read that, I'd like to directly get a quotation, and when we add that, it does in fact become too detailed, so we might want to move this information into a separate article (which should also include a list of all HP book burnings, I'd love to have that list). --Eloquence

 * Hence the suggestion for a separate article on controversy, which I think we should have. Still, I've made the textual reference quite clear. There's a link to an entry on the Bible and that links to various online Bibles where one could look-up the relevant text. --Dante Alighieri

 * It's false to suggest that said Christians oppose Harry Potter on the basis of a single Bible verse, or that their opposition depends on a mandate for capital punishment. All that remains is to think of a title for an article that might discuss this. -- Someone else 01:51 Nov 27, 2002 (UTC)

 * I didn't say that Christians oppose Harry Potter on the basis of a single Bible verse. I also didn't say that their opposition depends on a mandate for capital punishment. I said that the ROOT of the controversy is that passage... which is true. Without that verse, I doubt the witch-burning hysteria of centuries past would ever have occurred. If you think that the witch-burnings and the ideology surrounding them have nothing to do with the current controversy, then I must quite simply disagree with you. That being said, I'm all in favor of an article on Exodus 22:18. Anyone agree? --Dante Alighieri

 * I'm just saying that a reference invites a detailed discussion. But let's leave it at that until we have a separate article on the issue. --Eloquence

I just wanted to explain why I added that disclaimer about not everyone believing that the Bible mandates capital punishment for witchcraft. According to what I have read at religioustolerance.org, in the original Greek or Aramaic or whatever, the quote about not suffering a witch to live is mistranslated and "witch" means "poisoner" (i.e. a murderer) in the original. I'm not saying this is true (I don't know or care), but it is an interpretation of the Bible. One can believe in the inerrancy of the Bible without believing in capital punishment for witches. Tokerboy 01:53 Nov 27, 2002 (UTC)

 * Well, the point is that most Christians who have problems with Harry Potter don't read those sort of things. The point of that section of the article is not to talk about all Christians, but those who have problems with the books. As I've stated above, all the major English translations of the Bible say basically the same thing. --Dante Alighieri

I think the current paragraph on the controversy is excellent. I think it meets the requirement really very well indeed, and is a model of NPOV. Nevilley 08:57 Nov 27, 2002 (UTC)
 * It's definitely better NPOV wise, but it's a false statement. It implies that "Some Christians" oppose Harry Potter because they believe the punishment for witchcraft is death: in actuality, they oppose Harry Potter because they believe witchcraft is evil. -- Someone else

 * Well, that's just asking for further clarification -- what do they believe "witchcraft" to consist of? What do they believe "evil" to mean? Why do they believe that witchcraft is evil? How do the various prohibitions against witchcraft in scripture fit into it: is the modern belief that witchcraft is evil simply based on the longtime presence of biblical prohibitions against the practice, or is there something more specific which may or may not be directly relatable to the fictional wizardry depicted in fantasy novels, movies, and role-playing games? --Brion 11:55 Nov 27, 2002 (UTC)

 * As I've stated above, I believe that the hysteria surrounding the Inquisition and the burning of witches (yes, I know, they are not necessarily directly related) has something to do with it. That and Exodus 22:18. --Dante Alighieri

 * To qualify your post, the two or three centuries in which witchhunts were prominent (mainly the very late mediæval period and the whole of the renaissance) were characterised by persecutions in many non-English speaking countries. The concern was also more a variant of the concern with heresy than a simple literal application of the rule from the Bible. See witchhunt

To Brion: I personally sympathize with the (B) concern, but bear in mind that the whole issue presumes several things: --Ed Poor
 * 1) First of all, my church has no postion on this.
 * 2) My understanding of US Christians who object to "witchcraft" is: they think people who try to cast spells or summon demons are (a) disobeying specific biblical injunctions not to do so; (b) running the risk of becoming dominated by evil spirits.
 * that God exists
 * that people should obey the Bible
 * that evil spirits exist

 * Also look at Deuteronomy 18:11-12. --Dante Alighieri

The Old Testament laws in Exodus, Leviticus, and Deuteronomy applied to the covenant community of God's people prior to the coming of Christ... they were rules that were to be enforced (but if you read the Old Testament histories, they weren't very often) upon those who were part of God's people.

Therefore, one was not supposed to claim to be part of God's people and at the same time be a practicing sorcerer, idolater, etc. The penalty was to be 'cut off from the people.' In these cases, usually the death penalty. The ancient world was a harsh world. We are very naive if we self-righteously judge it by today's politically correct standards.

In the New Testament, similar behavior standards for God's people apply. (God's character has not changed, so what pleases/displeases Him is the same.) One is not supposed to claim to be a Christian and practice witchcraft, sorcery, idol worship, etc. The penalty in the New Testament is to be cut off from God's people -- but in the case of the New Testament, it is excommunication (if the church member refuses to repent), with a view that the person could possibly be won back.

Christ did not change what is acceptable behavior among God's people... He changed how the penalties would be handled. We are warned by Christ not to take up the sword as a means of handling matters in the church. When the church has taken up the sword (i.e., the Crusades), it turned out very badly for everyone involved.

The problem in American Christianity is that many try to apply the rules of behavior for the believing community to non-Christians and others outside the community of believers.. Let's take the case of a Pagan. Is the Pagan a Christian? No. If they are not a professing member of a Christian church, then what penalty should the Pagan face at the hands of the church? None, because they are not under the jurisdiction of the God's people. (The Pagan is still answerable to God, however.) The church could urge the Pagan to repent and become a Christian, but that's about it.

Otherwise, we are under the commandment to look out for what's best for our neighbor, no matter who or what they are, because all of mankind is made in God's image, even if they are in rebellion against Him.

However, if said Pagan is a full-fledged practicing Pagan, AND also claims to be a full fledged member in good standing at his local evangelical church, and refuses to leave one side or the other, then the local church is to help that person decide which way they are going to go, and keep that person's double-mindedness or hypocrisy from infecting the church.

See I Corinthians 5 : 9-13. In verse 12 of that passage the Apostle Paul says, "For what have I to do with judging outsiders? Is it not those inside the church you are to judge?  God judges those outside." In otherwords, the church is to clean up it's own act, and leave the judging of those outside the church to God. It's similar to to Jesus' commandment to take the log out of our own eye before we criticize our neighbor for the speck of sawdust in his eye.

 * What a shame more Christians don't agree with you. --Dante Alighieri

 * Fine, the Old Testament applies fully, according to "most Christians".

 * I hope they will be sacrificing their livestock to God and require their first-born sons to be devoted to the service of the LORD, then, as is instructed in Exodus 22: 29-30. If they don't, they're sinners because, according to "them", every word of the Old Testament is still valid and every Law within it must be obeyed.

 * Your posts about Exodus 22:18 did not address anything I had written. You effectively demolished a straw man of your own making.  I never even addressed this question, and nothing I said leads logically to the conclusion you were postulating.  Read what I wrote and not what you think I wrote.

 * I said the civil law of Moses (your strawman fell in this category) was a foreshadowing of a better thing, which was the law fulfilled the righteousness of Jesus Christ. Regarding the moral law, it is still in effect, because just treatment of others and just worship of God is still the duty of all men, and God's character has not changed, so what pleases/displeases Him is the same.

 * Well, I have to disagree with some of your assertions. First of all, regarding the New Testament reinterpreting the Old Testament: there is nothing to stop some "Christians" from picking and chosing Bible verses to suit their own needs. Just because YOU interpret your religion this way does not mean that OTHERS do. Let's not get too far from the point here. The paragraph in question is about the controversy over the Harry Potter books. The controversy over the books is largely a conservative Christian phenomenon. The root of that controversy must surely include such Biblical proscriptions against witchcraft as Exodus 22:18 and Deuteronomy 18:11-12. Nothing you have said refutes that. It's not MY fault that some people decide that they will only pay attention to those parts of the Bible that suit their purposes.

 * Incidentally, I was being sincere, not sarcastic, when I said that it was a shame more Christians don't agree with you. You seem to have a remarkably good grasp of your religion and I think that that's always a good thing. --Dante Alighieri

What the hell does any of this have to do with the article at hand? This looks like talk page abuse to me. Please stop it. --mav

 * The whole point is the relevence of some of the information in the controversy section. I don't see the abuse. After all, we're talking about the Harry Potter article. --Dante Alighieri

I consider arguments like this perfectly valid and not abuse, they help to refine the arguments and positions presented in the actual article. However, if this becomes a bigger issue, it should be moved to a separate article, as has been previously suggested. --Eloquence

What's the name of the Russian rip-off character of Harry? -- Zoe

 * Tanya Grotter.

"Scholastic" is mentioned but not defined. Would anyone like to elaborate...? -- Oliver P. 06:09 May 11, 2003 (UTC)
 * Thanks, Someone else. But are they officially called Scholastic Press? Their website calls them Scholastic Inc.... -- Oliver P. 06:36 May 11, 2003 (UTC)
 * I've always found the true name of a publisher to be a multiple choice affair. In this case, Rowling is published by Scholastic Press, a division of Scholastic Inc., under the imprint of Arthur A. Levine Books. So you decide . I suppose whichever is named on the lawsuit would be best. -- Someone else 06:39 May 11, 2003 (UTC)

While we have all become accustomed to seeing pro-Harry Potter articles on Wikipedia, I can't recall ever having seen an article that talks about the negative side of Harry Potter. Namely, that the books and movies promote witchcraft, paganism, and godless materialism. Despite what Harry Potter would have you believe, witchcraft is most definitely NOT "cool." I don't expect to change anybody's mind, but it would be nice to see just a LITTLE bit of balance here. Not all of the ideas that come from the minds of the creative Left are worth propogating, and if there was ever a concrete example of this, Harry Potter would be it.
 * suggestion - write it & link it in. See HP talk. :) Nevilley

 * Well, personally, if it comes to cool vs. not cool, I think the witchhunts were rather uncool, but I have no problem if someone adds those rather nutty views to the Harry Potter article, or perhaps a separate one specifically dedicated to that "controversy". That article should also mention the Harry Potter book burnings that took place, and perhaps contrast the reaction to Harry Potter to the one to "Lord of the Rings" (the books for which were written by a devout Catholic, and therefore nihil obstat). --Eloquence

 * the above from votes for NPOVing - I assume this is now resolved? -- MyRedDice

The following paragraph is nonsensicial:

 * In addition, some commentators criticize the books on the grounds that the stories are anti-family: Harry does not obey his abusive, vehemently anti-magic aunt and uncle, but idolizes his deceased parents, themselves a witch and wizard. Later in the series, he establishes a friendship with his godfather, Sirius Black, and spends more time with the all-wizard Weasley family, who are generally depicted as economically poor but generally happy and supportive of each other.

Nothing in the paragraph supports the topic sentence; contrariwise, it details how an orphan overcomes a BAD family situation because of his longing for a GOOD family. In what sense do these "commentators" mean that the book is anti-family? Uncle Ed 19:52 12 Jun 2003 (UTC)

The American Library Association tracks the number of challenges (formal written complaints made to a library or school about a book's content or appropriateness) made to books. The Harry Potter series are among the most frequently challenged from 1999 to present. The complaints alleged that the books have occult or Satanic themes, are violent, and are anti-family.

I suppose we'd have to read the complaints to know WHY the allegation of being anti-family is made. I suspect it is because Harry does not slavishly obey his adoptive parents. -- Someone else 20:04 12 Jun 2003 (UTC)

An example of the "reasoning" may be found at this cached webpage : Additionally, there is a strong anti-family strain in the Potter books. As was mentioned earlier, Harry’s biological parents were murdered. Other than them, the only biological family he has are horrible. Harry’s uncle, aunt and cousin, with whom he lives, are mean, selfish and unloving. They are "Muggles" (non-sorcerers) who make Harry’s life miserable for his beliefs and even make him sleep in a closet!

Harry’s witchy friends are made to appear very appealing next to these loutish family members, who could be seen as caricatures of "fundamentalist" Christians. The ordinary human adults of his family are seen as stupid and powerless, while the witches and warlocks are wise and powerful. What sort of message does this send to children about their relatives who might not live lives as fascinating as that portrayed in the books? -- Feel free to try and make that make sense and incorporate it... I'm sure there are other examples on the web too, if one wades deeply enough into the mire. -- Someone else 20:24 12 Jun 2003 (UTC)

Hedwig does not lead to a page about harry potter's pet :) Ilyanep 20:42 22 Jun 2003 (UTC)

 * I've added a disambiguation page for Hedwig, but someone still has to write the article about Hedwig the Owl at Hedwig (Harry Potter). -- Lee M

 * OK, the article has now been written. Fast work, people. -- Lee M

''Comic book fans have noted that a comic book series first published in 1993 by DC Comics called The Books of Magic by Neil Gaiman shares many similarities to Rowling's book. These include a dark haired young boy with glasses who is approached by magic wielding individuals to reveal to him his own potential as a powerful wizard. ''

I'm not entirely sure this section should be included as there have been literally hundreds of claims that Harry Potter is a derivative of some other work. Unless there is some sort of court action I don't think there is much point in including this kind of speculation.

Incidently I'm pretty sure Gaiman got his idea from "Good Omens" (which was a spoof of the movie The Omen) which he coauthored with Terry Pratchett.

--Imran 10:24 27 Jun 2003 (UTC)

 * I think it should stay. If you google for this subject, there are plenty of pages that mention this similarity, although without the controversy aspect of Nancy Stouffer.  Also, though I don't really think that the books are similar in plot, tone, or audience, there are quite a few more similarities, which I'll add to the article.  --DropDeadGorgias 13:48 27 Jun 2003 (UTC)

I believe Gaiman was asked at some point about this, and he didn't consider the similarities to be any more than superficial: though both are about a boy's initiation into magic, Harry Potter is basically a school story with magic, while Gaiman's work is written with considerably different intent for a much older audience, It's notable that Gaiman hasn't started any legal case concerning the similarities, -- Malcolm Farmer 14:10 27 Jun 2003 (UTC)

 * The similarity to Gaiman is minor compared with say the similarity to Le Guin's Wizard of Earthsea.

 * Yes, that at least has a school for wizards (but then, so does Ankh-Morpork); but a lot of LeGuin's story was about maintaining a balance (Taoism?) and the magic of knowing the True Names of things and people. HP is much more in the long tradition (in England at least) of stories about pupils at a boarding school -- e.g. Angela Brazil, Frank Richards, P.G.Wodehouse, Anthony Buckeridge etc.-- but with the fantasy slant of it being a school that teaches magic.

 * While the two series have different aims and writing styles, there are many similarities such as both start with an orphan child, the chief antagonist in both cases is a fellow school boy from an aristrocratic background (also notice the snobbery in Roke), magical teachers in specialist fields, magical scaring and duelling, a school "protected" from outsiders. Roke could easily be Durmstrang :-)

 * However my main aim was to say the comparision could be made between HP and many other books, so why include the Gaiman comparision over others ? --Imran 21:21 27 Jun 2003 (UTC)

Is Harry Potter and the Dragon's Path to Luck the correct translation of the title of that unauthorised Chinese Harry Potter book? I can't find any mention of that title on Google except on Wikipedia. Instead, it is consistantly called Harry Potter and Leopard Walk Up to Dragon as par media reports.
 * You're right, I've changed it. Also, I think we should remove the word "originally", because I don't think the unauthorized book has been translated into any other languages... Although I am curious as to what "Leopard Walk Up To Dragon" would translate to.  -DropDeadGorgias 20:56 30 Jun 2003 (UTC)

I'm not sure if this should go in the article, but it's funny - generate parody clues -- Jim Regan 21:52 4 Jul 2003 (UTC)

title: Talk:Harry Potter/Archive 1


text:
Talk:Hamas

"two spokesmen, four stances"
There appears to be now original research in this article where editors are introducing themes in Hamas' positions that are not found in scholarly sources. For example, can someone tell me which scholars say Hamas had "two spokesmen, four stances"? If not, why is this in the article? VR (Please ping on reply) 01:34, 6 April 2024 (UTC)
 * I see it was introduced by . In fact, most of that edit appears to be WP:SYNTH and WP:OR. Much of it is also unsourced.VR (Please ping on reply) 01:36, 6 April 2024 (UTC)
 * I went ahead and changed the section titles, mostly removing what I felt was OR. If anyone has objections, let me know.VR (Please ping on reply) 04:35, 7 July 2024 (UTC)
 * can you kindly explain this edit? VR (Please ping on reply) 08:42, 9 July 2024 (UTC)
 * Well, that should be very clear: VR has, in a complicated edit on 7 July, ‘decided’ that the truce offer from Yassin came after the year 1992 (by unmotivatedly changing some subheadings) but we don’t have any real information about when that truce offer was made. --Corriebertus (talk) 13:55, 11 July 2024 (UTC)

Extended-confirmed-protected edit request on 25 June 2024
Remove Venezuela from the list of state allies in the infobox. Neither of the two sources referenced verify this claim, and it was originally added by a user who is now blocked. Kinsio (talk) 19:47, 25 June 2024 (UTC)
 * ✅ Got approved for extended-confirmed so I did it myself :) Kinsio (talk) 01:45, 26 June 2024 (UTC)

Extended-confirmed-protected edit request on 28 June 2024
This claim has no basis in history and seeing as it lacks a source should be removed. "campaigned for the wearing of the hijab, which is not a part of traditional women's attire in Palestine,[citation needed]" The photo for who Khalil Raad is the source in this link (https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2023/5/15/the-photo-archive-bringing-pre-nakba-jerusalem-alive) shows a primary example of a Palestinian women in traditional dress wearing hijab. Numerous other photos exist, but a simple Google search explains that hijab was worn by Palestinian women traditionally and varied by social status and class. Tamush05 (talk) 08:47, 28 June 2024 (UTC)
 * ✅ M.Bitton (talk) 01:42, 29 June 2024 (UTC)

Extended-confirmed-protected edit request on 30 June 2024
Add before "political and millitary movement" that it's a terrorist organization. Somebody938467 (talk) 10:11, 30 June 2024 (UTC)

 * Not done This has been the subject of extensive discussions before and consensus is presently not in favour of doing this for reasons elaborated on there. Yr Enw (talk) 10:23, 30 June 2024 (UTC)
 * Thats just not good enough. Terroism is "Terrorism, in its broadest sense, is the use of violence against non-combatants to achieve political or ideological aims." According to wikipedia itself which is exactly what Hamas has done for almost a year now. This needs to be corrected regardless of what people think, facts don't care about feelings. 115.189.96.16 (talk) 18:23, 5 July 2024 (UTC)
 * As I said, this has been the subject of extensive discussions before and consensus is presently not in favour of doing this for reasons elaborated on there. So, if you disagree with that, those discussions are where to air your feelings. But you may not do this at present, due to the decision of the Arbitration Committee to restrict non-EC users (see here) from editing articles or talk pages relating to Israel-Palestine, with the sole exception of creating edit requests (I think it's this one ).
 * Perhaps you also need to read about the Problem of universals to realise these "facts" you're spouting are based on concepts that humans invent to refer to phenomena in the real world. Terrorism is a word, a label, a human invention. The violence to which it refers is, of course, real, but what word we use for it isn't as magically set in stone as you suggest. I mean, the word has only existed for a couple hundred years. And if we proceeded to apply it in the way you suggest, it would lose all utility because we'd be sticking it on every page for every single country on earth. Yr Enw (talk) 09:14, 6 July 2024 (UTC)

Conflicting estimates of size of Qassam Brigades
I noticed as of Corriebertus's recent edits there are now two conflicting estimates of the size of the Qassam Brigades in the article. Can anyone familiar with the topic comment on whether there are any sources evaluating the relative reliability of these different estimates? It doesn't really feel right to just say "some sources say this, some sources say that, other sources say third thing..." They're both ranges too, so I feel like the least confusing-for-the-reader way to do this would be to have one estimate inline and if there's a need to put an asterisk on that number, that can be done in a footnote.  Kinsio  (talk ★ contribs ★ rights) 20:14, 2 July 2024 (UTC)

Notified: Talk:Al-Qassam Brigades. Kinsio (talk ★ contribs ★ rights) 20:27, 2 July 2024 (UTC)

 * I must say or concede, that my editing on 2 July on section #Military wing was rather lazy and/or lousy. I had found those differing third and fourth estimates of that size of QB in our own sub-article about the topic. So no, we don't have two, we have indeed four estimates. But that can be stated in a more transparant way in our article, I agree. I think though, it is too difficult for us, and/or not our task, to assess which estimate is 'most reliable'. Four estimates lie rather far apart, so I think we may (and must!) assume that the outside world does not have a sharp idea or picture of those brigades' strength etc., and we (Wikipedia) should not try to hide that fact (= the acknowledged uncertainty of that strength) from our readers by giving one simple (seemingly 'certain') estimate and stalling that obvious uncertainty only in a footnote. --Corriebertus (talk) 08:02, 7 July 2024 (UTC)
 * It sounds like we should find a source discussing the implications of how far apart these estimates are (unfortunately, simply saying that and providing sources A, B, C, and D with the variance in their numbers as evidence would be WP:SYNTH). I'd need to check the sources to be sure but we may even be able to use different sections of the same sources for this, as estimates typically also come with a discussion of the level of confidence associated with them. (And for what it's worth, because of the same sort of WP:OR concerns, I wasn't suggesting that we try to make that determination of reliability, but rather find a source discussing it that we can refer to.), since you've been looking into this, could you list the four sources you mentioned here for ease of reference?  Kinsio  (talk ★ contribs ★ rights) 15:48, 7 July 2024 (UTC)

Extended-confirmed-protected edit request on 6 July 2024
decison = decision 2603:8000:D300:3650:B089:CD81:58FB:92D (talk) 22:09, 6 July 2024 (UTC)
 * ✅ Would've been easier to figure out what you meant if you used more words, but I did finally manage to parse it out. Good catch.  Kinsio  (talk ★ contribs ★ rights) 23:10, 6 July 2024 (UTC)

Restoring summary
I restored the summary of Hamas' political positions verbatim as it existed in this edit I think the summary at the top of every section is important given how long the sections are. And the section on political positions is indeed way too long, with a lot of verbatim quoting. We should ideally be paraphrasing and summarizing.VR (Please ping on reply) 04:37, 7 July 2024 (UTC)

Summarizing Hamas' policies towards two-state solution
Given this article is way too long, I'd like to go ahead and summarize the section on Hamas policies towards the two state solution. We should give the most WP:WEIGHT to scholarly sources, and less weight to news reports in news sources that never made it into scholarship. If no one objects, I can start.VR (Please ping on reply) 04:57, 7 July 2024 (UTC)
 * The many statements of Hamas about how to regard or how to ‘deal’ with (the existence of) Israel are undoubtedly (very) complicated, because, as I explain today in Talk section “two-state solution” Needs not and should not be in that section heading, different spokesmen etc. keep phrasing (perhaps also changing) Hamas’ attitude/policies towards Israel very often differently than the previous time. The fact that those attitudes are often published via news media or ‘charters’ and not via ‘scholars’ doesn’t make them less relevant, but also perhaps not easier to understand. Therefore, I strongly disadvice colleague VR to go ahead with, as he calls it, (drastically) “summarizing the section on Hamas policies towards the two state solution” (ofcourse he means the section on policies towards Israel) for his alleged reasons that the article (and this section!?) would be ‘way too long’ and ‘non-scholarly’ sources should be shunned, slighted, scorned, disregarded or downplayed. Yes, the article is rather long, partly because the Pal.-Isr. conflict is older than a century and very complicated. Especially the issue ‘policies’ is mindtwistingly intricate, thus should get the place and length in the article that it needs for clarity, without smuggling away positions/statements/information that don’t please us, on the pretext that they are ‘not scholarly’ etc.. Western countries including Israel have the infrastructure and facilities and luxury for scholars; many Hamas adherents don’t even have a house, nor much certainty of having a meal (or merely to still live) at the end of the day. Section ‘Policies’ is core business in this article and should be treated with care, not shortened carelessly or for the wrong reasons/motives that I just tackled. If the length of the article really is problematic, I note that two sections are longer than section ‘Policies...’: sections “Organization”, and “Violence” (nearly twice as long, and its subsection “terrorist designation” alone is already almost as long as section “Policies…”). One or both of them might be largely replaced to a sub-article. Especially “Violence” is a rather trivial issue: Hamas is at war, doesn’t deny that, and war means violence. You can spell out every war act of Hamas in great detail, tell them they are terrorist, terrorist terrorist terrorist terrorist, many pages long, but that doesn’t change Hamas much and hardly helps anyone to understand that political/military organisation nor to end that shameful and heart-rending war. That pretty multicolor very long wikitable “Terrorist org.” might be replaced to a subarticle, perhaps even with (most of) that whole topic ‘[Hamas] violence’. --Corriebertus (talk) 21:16, 10 July 2024 (UTC)
 * Scholarly sources are good and all things being equal should be preferred to newspaper articles. Most of the section is already based on the former and I wouldn't object to removing information based on articles published 15-20 years ago in the NYT or Haaretz.
 * However, the scholarly consensus takes time to coalesce. We're in the middle of a war it's worth letting the reader know what the most recent position is, even if it comes from the AP or even Middle East Monitor. Later we'll replace these articles by scholarly sources. Alaexis¿question? 17:57, 12 July 2024 (UTC)

“two-state solution” Needs not and should not be in that section heading.
On 7 July, a paragraph of text was parachuted in the top of section Hamas (while also things in it were changed/added and its title changed), with a (scarce) motivation suggesting this top text be a “summary” of the whole section. I’m not yet convinced that it indeed is a sufficiently relevant, representative, and balanced (and correct!) summary of that section: even if all separate statements in that parachuted text would be correct – what I’ll further have to check later – that alone wouldn’t guarantee it to be a balanced, useful, ‘good’ summary. But my two corrections today, on that 7 July edit (after my first correction on 8 July), concern its unmotivated changing of the section title and its undue emphasis on a vague statement of a professor. There is no concrete, clear, permanent “two-state solution”(-proposal) for ‘the P.-I. conflict’ currently being proposed, discussed or negotiated (in official political circles), and hasn’t been since 15 May 1948 – thus such t.s.-solution-proposal also has never existed during Hamas’ existence (=since 1987) (and the vague contention/opinion of prof. Ayoob mentioned in this section doesn’t change that fact). But then, to use that word ‘t.-s. solution’ as prominently in the heading and also in the first sentence of this (sub)section as is done recently on 7 July would needlessly and unjustly suggest (and thus easily mislead readers into thinking) that there is – especially if the Wiki text even states that Hamas has had (changing/evolving) “policies towards” such a thing. “The” or “a” t.s.-solut. hasn’t existed during Hamas’ lifetime, logically Hamas hasn’t commented on it, logically such comment can’t be found in this Wikipedia article’s section, thus the assertion in this ‘summary’ of Hamas having “evolving policies towards” two-state solution is incorrect and baseless, thus the changed section title incorrect, baseless and misleading. (By the way: saying that a Wiki text or heading can too easily generate incorrect conceptions/ideas of ‘facts’ within some readers’ minds isn’t saying that the involved editor had the deliberate intention to mislead anyone.) The only information, more or less involving ‘two states’, mentioned in this section, are statements from different Hamas spokesmen and in some Hamas texts, starting 2006, most every time in different wordings, statements that are either vague [March2006;May2010], or alluding to a (not-permanent but) temporary two-state-situation [several offers of truce through the years;1May2017;Jan2024], or both [April2008;Sep2009;Nov+Dec2010;1Nov2023], so all of them Hamas statements – for one or two reasons – do not comment on a/the ‘two-state solution’ within the definition of that term as given in the Wikipedia article on that lemma (and the vague contention/opinion of prof. Ayoob mentioned in the section doesn’t change that fact). Meanwhile, I’m replacing that statement of prof Ayoob of 2020 (over “two-state solution” etc.) from this summarizing top paragraph to subsection §Comments from non-Hamas-members, because it is very vague and would be overvalued when placed in this summary. A concrete t.s.-solution(in Wiki definition) is currently not in discussion, the 2017charter itself doesn’t propose one, “acceptance of the preconditions…” for a non-existing plan is an extreme vagueness; this (utterly vague) ‘opinion’ of a professor does not even imply or say that Hamas itself has any opinion about any t.s.-solution(in the Wikipedia definition) and thus doesn’t add any concrete information about Hamas’ policies/attitudes towards Israel (or towards ‘t.s.-solut.’), so it may fairly well be placed in subsection §Comments from non-Hamas-members but it would be misplaced, undue, unbalanced/tendentious, unnecessary to have just this one (rather vague) ‘opinion’/statement of one (fairly obscure) professor—among the 19 other opinions in our article of outsiders about Hamas policies etc. — in this summarizing subsection here. (But while replacing it there, it needs also to be corrected, in the way I’ve already explained here on 6March2024.) --Corriebertus (talk) 21:14, 10 July 2024 (UTC)

Calling Hamas a terrorist group
this needs to be made clear for any readers that its classifed hy many governments as a terriorst group. we should not be sugar coating things. its being called a military and politcal orginization Juliantheblaze (talk) 03:58, 14 July 2024 (UTC)
 * Are you talking about this article or another article? For this article, the 4th paragraph of the lead covers this, the 'Designated as a terrorist group by' infobox section covers this, the 'Terrorist designation' section of the article body covers this, and the word terrorist appears 129 times. Also, see MOS:TERRORIST for interest. Also, it is a political organization, and it contains a military organization within it. Those are objective facts about Hamas. Sean.hoyland (talk) 05:09, 14 July 2024 (UTC)

The first paragraph of 1988 and 2017 charters > 1988 > Antisemitism should be reworded

 * What I think should be changed (format using textdiff):

This section is difficult to understand. N/A
 * Why it should be changed:
 * References supporting the possible change (format using the "cite" button):

Makemeaname22 (talk) 10:47, 14 July 2024 (UTC)

 * Red information icon with gradient background.svg Not done: The "is said" language is there because the article is using the statements of others; the charter doesn't literally say those things. The word "genocide" does not appear and the "killing the Jews" language in Article 7 comes from quoting Allah. – macaddct1984 (talk | contribs) 11:17, 14 July 2024 (UTC)

title: Talk:Hamas