Chapter 15: The OpenVMS GUI

Overview

This chapter introduces the OpenVMS GUI.

Earlier chapters concentrated entirely on the text-only DCL interface. Many OpenVMS systems have no graphics hardware at all; others may not offer GUI services to all users, such as those connecting via Telnet.

Some readers will have direct access to a desktop OpenVMS system or to X Window System clients, which allows the execution of many components of the OpenVMS GUI. Users who have text-only access may skip this chapter if they desire.

GUI users are strongly encouraged to learn about the DCL interface, as DCL and command procedures are a central part of OpenVMS, even for GUI users.

The remainder of this chapter is designed to guide the reader through logging into the GUI interface and then to introduce its features.