The Toaster Button or Control Menu Box

Introduction:
The toaster button is located in the upper-left corner of the screen. It is sometimes to referred to as the Control-menu Box.

Topics Covered in this Section:

What the Toaster Button Does:
When you move the mouse cursor to the toaster button and click on it once, you will see a list of commands. Below is a picture of the toaster button with the menu opened:

The commands on the toaster button allow you to change a window's shape, position, and prominence.

Reasons For Changing the Desktop's Display:
There are two main reasons for changing the display on your desktop. First, adjusting the shape, position, and prominence of the windows allows you to work with what you are doing more conveniently. Secondly, like a furniture desktop, you might want to vary which ones are on top. Here are some examples:

  1. If you are working with one application at a time, it makes sense to let that application window dominate the screen, i.e., to maximize or fill the screen with the application window.

  2. If you are working with multiple applications simultaneously, you might want to resize both applications' windows to share the screen. Sharing the screen among the windows will allow you to quickly switch from one window to the other. For example, if you are cutting-and-pasting or copying-and-pasting text from a Notepad application to a Word application, then you would want both the Notepad and Word applications' windows displayed on the screen.

  3. If you are not currently using the application, but go back to it from time to time, then it is convenient to minimize that application window (i.e., to reduce the window to an icon). By doing so you will have the program handy, but out of the way. This is convenient for reducing desktop cluttering. Minimization is also convenient for those programs you want to twiddle with over a course of a session.

Changing the Desktop Display:

Changing the shape:

Changing the position:

Minimizing, Maximizing, Restoring, and Closing a window:

Common Problems to Watch For:

Laws of Least Astonishment: The Windows 3.11 environment is not nearly as simple to learn as it should be. Windows 3.11, unfortunately, repeatedly violates the so-called law of least astonishment: it features similar command sequences that produce astonishingly different results. The following list gives three violations of this law of least astonishment that can produce great confusion among new users.

  1. Any movement of a window makes a difference: Tiny differences in positioning a mouse can produce strikingly different results: being off by as little as one dot in the screen can completely change the meaning of a click. Mice, furthermore, are really sensitive devices. A mouse that is in good working condition will respond to tiny hand movements. A common mistake that novice mouse users often make is not keeping the mouse steady while moving it. This often lead to an astonishing reaction when the wrong action takes place. For example when you are dragging (holding down on the left mouse button) the scroll bar to move up or down the screen, you must keep the mouse cursor within the scroll bar. If you accidentally move the mouse off the scroll bar, the dragging action stops, and you will not get the result you want. To solve this problem, make sure you hold the mouse steady when moving or clicking it.

  2. Double clicking the mouse does something totally different from a single click: Sometimes you do not get the action you want from a command because you clicked the mouse an incorrect number of times. Here are some sample problems that occur often:

    • Single clicking an icon and expecting an active window.
        Single clicking on an icon will bring up a menu, whereas double clicking will open a window application.

    • Double clicking the mouse on the toaster button and expecting the menu to appear.
        Double clicking the mouse on the toaster button will close the window; a single click will bring up the list of commands.

    • Single clicking on a program item will highlight the item, whereas double clicking will open the program item.

  3. Toaster button commands don't work as they should: When you use the toaster button command that moves a window, you must first place the mouse cursor on the title bar before depressing the cursor to start the move. If you start the drag-and-drop sequence with the mouse positioned anywhere else on the screen, the window will not move. Similarly, when you use the toaster button command that resizes a window, you must must first place the mouse cursor in the middle of the border (where the cursor changes to a double-headed arrow) to start the resize.

Moving and Resizing:
Iconified Windows: