Unstated first step in the design of Windows 95: Copy the window title bar buttons more or less pixel-for-pixel from NeXTSTEP, but change the NeXT “iconify” button to do “maximize” instead. But don’t copy the useful mechanism of having the middle of the “close” button “×” be incomplete and look more like “⸬” if the window can’t be closed, like if the document in that window hasn’t been saved.
I can see the reason W95 changed the iconify button; the NeXT iconify button looks like a NeXTSTEP iconified window, so on NeXTSTEP the button is self-explanatory. But Windows 95 does not make windows into icons, W95 minimizes windows to the bottom of the screen into a little line of text. W95 therefore, intuitively enough, made the “minimize” button similar to a minimized window line; the “_” button. The NeXT iconify button, on the other hand, more resembles a W95 window. (W95 was made to run on PCs with low graphical resolutions and memory, both of which made it reasonable to only run and show one program at a time. This made “maximizing” a window a reaonable operation, unlike on a NeXT, where high resolution and multi-tasking was the norm.) Therefore, the change is understandable.
It’s just odd that I don’t think I’ve ever seen anybody mention this.
I can see the reason W95 changed the iconify button; the NeXT iconify button looks like a NeXTSTEP iconified window, so on NeXTSTEP the button is self-explanatory. But Windows 95 does not make windows into icons, W95 minimizes windows to the bottom of the screen into a little line of text. W95 therefore, intuitively enough, made the “minimize” button similar to a minimized window line; the “_” button. The NeXT iconify button, on the other hand, more resembles a W95 window. (W95 was made to run on PCs with low graphical resolutions and memory, both of which made it reasonable to only run and show one program at a time. This made “maximizing” a window a reaonable operation, unlike on a NeXT, where high resolution and multi-tasking was the norm.) Therefore, the change is understandable.
It’s just odd that I don’t think I’ve ever seen anybody mention this.