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email messages that reside on a remote server. There's a related protocol called SMTP, which we also discuss below.

The Messaging Application Programming Interface (MAPI) is a proprietary email protocol of Microsoft, that can be used by Outlook (Microsoft's email client software) to communicate with Microsoft Exchange (its email server software). It provides somewhat more functionality than an IMAP protocol; unfortunately, as a proprietary protocol, it works only for Outlook-Exchange interactions.

POP

POP is the older design, and hails from an era when intermittent connection via modem (dial-up) was the norm. POP allows users to retrieve email when connected, and then act on the retrieved messages without needing to stay "online." This is an important benefit when connection charges are expensive.

The basic POP procedure is to retrieve all inbound messages for storage on the client, delete them on server, and then disconnect. (The email server functions like a mailbox at the Post Office - a temporary holding area until mail gets to its final destination, your computer.)

Outbound mail is generated on the client, and held for transmission to the email server until the next time the user's connection is active. After it's uploaded, the server forwards the outgoing mail to other email servers, until it reaches its final destination.

Most POP clients also provide an option to leave copies of email on the server. In this case, messages are only removed from the server when greater than a certain "age" or when they have been explicitly deleted on the client. It's the copies on the client that are considered the "real" ones, however, with those left on the server merely temporary backups.

IMAP

IMAP is the newer protocol and oriented toward a "connected" mode of operation. The standard IMAP procedure is to leave messages on the server instead of retrieving copies, so email is only accessible when "on-line."

IMAP is more suited to a world of always-on connections, particularly the fast connections offered by broadband mechanisms. Having to be connected to read your email is a trivial obstacle when the connection is always available. (It's a little like leaving your messages at the Post Office, and going there every time you want to read them. That might be difficult in the physical world, but it's easy in the virtual one.)

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Because messages remain on the server, until explicitly deleted by the user, they can be accessed by multiple client computers - an important advantage when you use more than one computer to check your email.

IMAP does not preclude keeping copies on the client, but, in an inversion of the way POP works, it's the server's copies that are considered the "real" ones. That offers an important security benefit - you won't lose your email if, for some reason, your client computer's storage media fails.

IMAP has other advantages over POP (detailed in the links provided below). It is the standard we recommend if you can't use MAPI.

SMTP

At the risk of overloading you with information, you should know that strictly speaking it's only the incoming mail that is handled by a POP or IMAP protocol. Outgoing mail for both POP and IMAP clients uses the Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP).

When you set up a POP or IMAP email account on email client software, you must specify the name of the (POP or IMAP) mail server computer for incoming mail. You must also specify the name of the (SMTP) server computer for outgoing mail. These names are typically in the same form as Web addresses (e.g., "imap.med.miami.edu"). Depending on the client, there may also be specifications for email directories and searching.

MAPI

As noted, MAPI is Microsoft's proprietary email protocol. It provides greater functionality than IMAP for Outlook email clients interacting with an Exchange email server. It doesn't work for anything else. (In Outlook you may simply see the connection option "Microsoft Exchange Server" rather than MAPI. It's offering the same thing.)

Remote access using MAPI may require use of a VPN connection, because the ports (communications channels) that MAPI uses are otherwise blocked for security reasons. (That's the case when accessing the medical campus Exchange system remotely.)

Web browser email access

Many email systems can now be accessed using only a Web browser. There is no need to install client email software of any kind. Logically, Web browser interfaces to email are like IMAP, in that all the messages remain on the server unless explicitly deleted. (Message copies can be saved on the client computer.)

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For example, the medical campus Exchange email system can be accessed by Outlook Web Access (OWA); it provides most of the functionality of an installed version of Outlook. OWA is compatible with most browsers, such as Firefox, Netscape, Opera or Safari, though it works best with Microsoft's Internet Explorer browser.

3. POST-READING ASSIGNMENT

Use the picture below and describe the work of the email protocols.

4. LANGUAGE IN USE

4.1. Match the words in Column A with the synonyms in Column B.

4.2. Make up10 sentences, using Column A and modal verbs.

5. WRITING

Read the text again and compress it (See Supplement 6).

6. SPEAKING

We can’t imagine our everyday life without using of the Internet. Convince your partner of the importance of this problem. Give 10 statements, using the appropriate words and expressions from the table below.

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Module 3.

ADVANCED INTERFACES IN COMPUTER SCIENCE

1.What is interface?

2.What are the types of interface?

3.What do you know about the history of graphic user interface?

4.What are the characteristics of advanced interface?

Unit 1

1. PRE-READING ASSIGNMENT

1.1.You are going to read the text called “Multiple Document Interface”. What do you know of MDI?

1.2.Translate the vocabulary used in the text below:

2.1. Read the text and find the answers to these questions:

1.What does SDI stand for?

2.What are the advantages and disadvantages of Multiple Document Interface?

3.What can cause confusion to some users?

Multiple Document Interface

1) Multiple document interface is considered an advanced interface in computer sciences. Graphical computer applications with a Multiple Document

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Interface (MDI) are those whose windows reside under a single parent window (usually with the exception of modal windows), as opposed to all windows being separate from each other (single document interface). The initialism MDI is usually not expanded. In the usability community, there has been much debate over which interface type is preferable. Generally SDI is seen as more useful in cases where users work with more than one application. Companies have used both interfaces with mixed responses. For example, Microsoft has changed its Office applications from SDI to MDI mode and then back to SDI, although the degree of implementation varies from one component to another.

The disadvantage of MDI usually cited is the lack of information about the currently opened windows: In order to view a list of windows open in MDI applications, the user typically has to select a specific menu ("window list" or something similar), if this option is available at all. With an SDI application, the window manager's task bar or task manager displays the currently opened windows. In recent years, applications have increasingly added "task-bars" and "tabs" to show the currently opened windows in an MDI application, which has made this criticism somewhat obsolete. Some people use a different name for this interface, "tabbed document interface" (TDI). When tabs are used to manage windows, individual ones can usually not be resized.

Nearly all graphical user interface toolkits to date provide at least one solution for designing MDIs. The Java GUI toolkit, Swing, for instance, provides the class javax.swing.JDesktopPane which serves as a container for individual frames (class javax.swing.JInternalFrame). GTK+ lacks any standardized support for MDI.

2) Compared to single document interface we can point out the following advantages. With MDI (and also TDI), a single menu bar and/or toolbar is shared between all child windows, reducing clutter and increasing efficient use of screen space. An application's child windows can be hidden/shown/minimized/maximized as a whole. Features such as "Tile" and "Cascade" can be implemented for the child windows. Possibly faster and more memory efficient, since the application is shared, and only the document changes. the speed of switching between the internal windows is usually faster than having the OS switch between external windows. Usually much faster to work with, from usability point of view, because you get a workspace of your own for this application to concentrate on, without other applications interfering. moreover,

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there are less mouse clicks to get things done, and less mental time for the user to seek the function (s)he needs. Some applications have keyboard shortcuts to quickly jump to the functionality you need (faster navigating), and this doesn't need the OS or window manager support, since it happens inside the application.

3) It cannot be used successfully on desktops using multiple monitors. It also cannot be used successfully with multiple virtual desktops. MDI can make it more difficult to work with several applications at once, by restricting the ways in which windows from multiple applications can be arranged together. Without an MDI frame window, floating toolbars from one application can clutter the workspace of other applications, potentially confusing users with the jumble of interfaces. Hand printed characters are created by humans, so understanding and the shared menu changes, which may cause confusion to some users. MDI child windows behave differently from those in single document interface applications, requiring users to learn two subtly different windowing concepts. Similarly, the MDI parent window behaves like the desktop in many respects, but has enough differences to confuse some users. Many window managers have built-in support for manipulating groups of separate windows, which is typically more flexible than MDI in that windows can be grouped and ungrouped arbitrarily. A typical policy is to group automatically windows that belong to the same application. This arguably makes MDI redundant by providing a solution to the same problem.

4)

1.Internet Explorer 6: This is a typical SDI application

2.Visual Studio 6 development environment: This is a typical modern implementation of MDI

3.Visual Studio NET: MDI or TDI with "Window" menu, but not both

4.Firefox: TDI by default, can be SDI instead

5.Opera: MDI combined with TDI

6.GIMP: Floating windows (limited MDI is available via "Deweirdifier" plugin)

7.GIMPshop: A fork of the GIMP edited to be more user-friendly for Adobe Photoshop users. Note: the Windows version (still in beta form) has the "Deweirdifier" plug in built-in

8.Adobe Photoshop: Floating windows in Mac version; MDI in Windows XP version. In newer versions of Photoshop, toolbars can move outside the frame window. Child windows can be outside of the frame unless

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they are minimized or maximized.

9.Adobe Acrobat: Purely MDI until version 7.0.( Microsoft Windows version only)

10.Microsoft Excel 2003: Excel is SDI if you start new instances of the application, but classic MDI if you click the "File > New" menu (except the child windows appear on the OS taskbar)

11.Microsoft Word 2003: Up to Office 97, Word was MDI. However, from 2000 onwards, Word is a Multiple Top-Level Windows Interface application, thus exposing to shell as many individual SDI instances while the operating system recognizes it as a single instance of an MDI Application. MFC (which Microsoft Office is loosely based upon) supports this metaphor from version 7.0, as a new Feature in Visual Studio 2002.

12.UltraEdit: Combination of MDI & TDI (a true MDI interface with a tab bar for quick access).

13.Notepad++: TDI

14.Macromedia Studio under Windows uses a hybrid interface. If document windows are maximized, as they are by default, the program presents a TDI, however, if the windows are un-maximized it presents an MDI.

15.Corel Wordperfect: MDI, although a user can open multiple instances of WP with a single document in each, if they wish to. Recent versions maintain a list of open documents for a given window on the status bar at the bottom of the window, providing a variant of the TDI.

5) This is a list of examples from back in the days of Windows 3.x - Program Manager, File Manager, IDE-style interface

Fig.11. IDE-style interface

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IDE-style interface in RSS Bandit.

Graphical computer applications with an IDE-style interface (IDE) are those whose child windows reside under a single parent window (usually with the exception of modal windows). An IDE-style interface is distinguishable form of Multiple Document Interface (MDI), because all child windows in an IDE-style interface are enhanced with added functionality not ordinarily available in MDI applications. Because of this, IDE-style applications can be considered a functional superset and descendant of MDI applications.

Examples of enhanced child-window functionality include:

1.Dockable child windows

2.Collapsable child windows

3.Tabbed document interface for sub-panes

4.Independent sub-panes of the parent window

5.GUI splitters to resize sub-panes of the parent window

6)Collapsable child windows are as follows: A common convention for child windows in IDE-style applications is the ability to collapse child windows, either when inactive, or when specified by the user. Child windows that are collapsed will conform to one of the four outer boundaries of the parent window, with some kind of label or indicator that allows them to be expanded again.

7)In contrast to (MDI) applications, which ordinarily allow a single tabbed interface for the parent window, applications with an IDE-style interface allow tabs for organizing one or more subpanes of the parent window. IDE-style application examples : Netbeans, Eclipse, Visual Studio 6,Visual Studio .NET, RSS Bandit, JEdit , MATLAB. This problem that MDI solves does not occur on Mac OS X, because the Mac OS X GUI is application centric instead of window centric. As opposed to Windows, all windows belonging to an application share the same menu, they can be hidden and manipulated as a group, and switching occurs between applications (i.e. groups of windows) instead of between individual windows.

3.POST-READING

3.1. Look through the text again and assign the titles to the paragraphs from the following list:

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A)Tabbed document interface for sub-panes.

B)Window arrangements

C)Classic examples.

D)Application examples

E)Disadvantages

F)MDI and its characteristics

G)Advantages

H)

3.2. Find key words and sentences in each paragraph of the text.

4. LANGUAGE IN USE

4.1. Now look through the paragraphs 1-7 of the text and find all the cases of Participle I & II. Explain their function.

4.2. Complete the gaps in this summary of the text using Participle I & II:

The Amiga computer was launched by Commodore in 1985 with a GUI 1)

___________ Workbench 2) ___________an internal engine which drives all the input events 3) ___________ Intuition, and 4) ________ almost entirely by RJ Mical. The first versions used a garish blue/orange/white/black default palette, which was selected for high contrast on televisions and composite monitors. Workbench presented directories as drawers 5) ________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 6) ________ by the Commodore sales department, the first floppies of AmigaOS which were released with Amiga1000 named the whole OS "Workbench". Since then, users and CBM itself referred to "Workbench" as the nickname for the whole AmigaOS (7) ___________ Amiga DOS, Extras, etc.). This common consent ended with release of version 2.0 of AmigaOS, which