Recently I was browsing a website and noticed a term that was new to me — Widget. Now I have lived on god’s good earth for more than four decades and heard of midgets; but what the hell was a widget? I searched for a dictionary of computer terms online and found a webpage that defined the term widget as ‘an element of a GUI that displays information in a specific way for a user to interact with an operating system and application. Examples include scroll bars, and buttons’.
GUI? Buttons? One term led to another and little did I foresee that I would be sitting in front of the computer for the next four hours, deciphering a plethora of computer terms, all of which save the last in this article ,were new to me. I started by looking at the meanings.
Buttons: For all these years I thought buttons were the things that went on your shirt or trousers and were the things that was difficult to find especially when you were desperate to pee. Now it also had a different meaning. Button: (sometimes known as a command button or push button) is a user interface element that provides the user a simple way to interact with dialog boxes, like confirming an action.
If the explanation had stopped with that and a visual shown alongside, things would have been clear. But a following line instructed me to follow the breadcrumbs on top of the page to get back to the previous term (and page).
Breadcrumbs? If you thought, like me, that breadcrumbs were the things you coat cutlets with, you’re partially correct. In computers it is, let’s say you are googling for chicken chowmein. The web page will display a series of arrowheads — called glyphs — on top of the page that has Ming dynasty first followed by an arrowhead pointing to China, followed by yet another arrowhead to Beijing and so on and so forth until you get to a noodle shop in the corner, with a large red board listing lots of items, one of which is chowmein. Now these arrowheads that trace your chowmein travails are called breadcrumbs.
Right below the term Breadcrumbs was another term, combo box — that I always associated with food for I had seen the word first at fast food joints. Here too I was mistaken. I read further to discover that a combo box was a component with a drop-down arrow that the user clicks with his mouse to display a list of options. The only words in that definition that made any sense to me were clicks and mouse. Which brings me to the final term.
Mouse. Until about 10 years ago, a mouse was the thing that tumbled out of the rafters in my aunt’s house and squeaked and ran about the house and set everyone on edge. And then computers came along. I became the master and the mouse obeyed my commands and I shook it in the manner I wanted. That’s as far as my bravery went. The older variety still tumbles out of the rafters and scares the hell out of me, besides of course treating my pant as a midnight snack.