Patent ID: 8040360

Claim:
A machine-readable storage medium storing executable program instructions which when executed by a data processing system causes the system to perform operations, comprising: displaying a plurality of windows on a screen space of a display device, wherein at least a first set of user applications and a second set of user applications are being executed to display the plurality of windows; displaying a user interface including an icon for one or more system applications wherein the user interface includes a dock; receiving a selection of a selected applications mode for the first set of user applications; automatically removing, in response to the selection of the selected application mode for the first set of user applications, all the windows associated with the second set of user applications from the screen space of the display device, except for one or more windows of the first set of the user applications; continuing to display the user interface after the automatically removing the all the windows from the screen space of the display device, except for the one or more windows of the first set of the user applications, wherein the user interface displays user level applications that are being currently executed; displaying in the user interface icons of the second set of the user applications which windows have been removed from the screen space at an edge of the screen space, wherein the user interface displays icons of the second set of the user applications that are currently being executed; receiving a request to display one or more windows of the second set of user applications while in the selected applications mode; and in response to the receiving the request, automatically replacing all the windows of the first set of user applications with the one or more windows of the second set of user applications on the screen space of the display device, wherein the first set of user applications which have had all the windows removed from the screen, continue to be executed, and wherein live representations of the first set of user applications that are being currently executed are displayed on the user interface located at the edge of the screen space.