windowing

1. 1
   noununcountable

   The use of a graphical interface that is divided into separate on-screen windows.

   The operating system's windowing allowed users to drag files between two open folders.

   Before graphical windowing, command-line interfaces filled the entire monitor.

   Note

   A computing term most at home in the compound windowing system, the software that draws and manages the windows on a screen. NeWS was an early one. On its own the word names the whole approach of dividing a screen into separate windows. It is usually uncountable, so one speaks of an interface's windowing rather than of its windowings.

2. 2
   noununcountable

   The windows of a building considered together as a whole: its fenestration.

   The cathedral's elaborate windowing flooded the nave with colored light.

   Restoration work matched the new windowing to the building's original style.

   Similarfenestration

   Note

   Here the -ing of window + -ing gathers many things into one: the windows of a facade taken as a single feature, much as paneling names all the panels in a room. It is usually uncountable, so a building has elaborate windowing rather than several windowings. Fenestration is the architect's Latinate equivalent and the more technical choice. Windowing is the plainer English word for the same thing.

3. 3
   verb

   Present participle and gerund of window.

   Note

   The verb behind this form does three jobs: furnishing a building with windows, placing something in a window, and applying a window function to a signal. After be it is the progressive (the crew is windowing the attic); in noun positions it is the gerund. The gerund shades into the nouns, a building's windows and signal trimming. What sets it apart is that it takes a direct object.

4. 4
   noununcountable

   The multiplication of a signal by a window function, which restricts the signal to a specific segment of time.

   Applying windowing before the Fourier transform reduced the spectral leakage.

   Engineers compared several windowing functions to find the cleanest result.

   Note

   Signal processing uses the term for cutting a finite stretch out of a longer signal without cutting it crudely. The window function usually tapers toward its edges, which reduces the spectral leakage that abrupt truncation would introduce. The step typically comes before a Fourier transform. Engineers say both window function and windowing function, and the matching verb takes the signal as its object: to window a signal.

5. 5
   noununcountable

   The scheduling of a film's exhibition and distribution, such as a period in theaters before release on home media.

   Careful windowing protects box-office returns before a title appears on streaming platforms.

   The distributor's windowing placed the film in theaters for ninety days before any digital sale.

   Note

   Film distribution borrows the window as a stretch of time. Each channel, from theaters to home media, gets its own period, and windowing is the plan that puts those periods in order. The point of the sequence is revenue: the earlier, more lucrative showings run before the later releases arrive. The word belongs to the business side of film and television, not to criticism.

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