Terminology searched

Hi guys,

I am looking for the right terminology to describe a GUI, which has modular components/containers (my words), which can be displayed or hidden, or moved around, docked or sized as required by the user.

In Visual Studio or Adobe Photoshop they call each of such "containers" a window. From my point of view a window isn't selfdescibing enough, because the whole app can be called a window in Microsoft speach. And if such application opens a new instance, it shows also a new window. And in microsoft foundation, even a button is called a window… You know what I mean… 🙂

I am more thinking about calling it a "widget". But on the other hand "widgets" are commonly used for independent components. (if I think of widgets in mobile OS, Opera or Apple Dashboard)

The content of containers found in complex applications like Visual Studio or Photoshop are bound to each other. e.g.: if you select a file in an "explorer window", the "content window" is updated. And if you run the source code of the "content window", it's been shown in the "console window". So these "widgets" have dependancies to each other.

I am looking for a better terminology of such windows and also for the GUI/usage concept.

Maybe you can help me out?

Thanks so far!