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Comment by literalusername | Hacker News Reader

In this early demo (Codename: Chicago), the minimize and maximize buttons have been redesigned, but the close button remains the same, and to the left as before.

I wonder where the author got the idea that the [-] button at the top-left was a close icon. It was the "Control Box", a menu icon. AFAIK it's still there, just invisible -- hit alt+space to open it.

Disclaimer: I'm currently unable to test that.

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If you double-click it, it closes the application. It was converted from a picture of a spacebar to the application's icon, but still functions the same way.

Some time ago I was stunned discovering how many Windows users had no idea that double-clicking [-] closes the window. I bet that was the main reason for introducing separate close button.

As someone who used Windows 3.1 for years and now uses Powershell on Windows 7 every day at work, I'm ashamed to admit I had no idea.

> It was the "Control Box", a menu icon. AFAIK it's still there, just invisible -- hit alt+space to open it.

Still there in Windows 7. It's visible in some applications (e.g., PowerShell) but not others; ALT+SPACE seems to open it consistently whether it's visible or not.

My hazy memory is that the control box was retained for accessibility and for the many users trained to use it on Windows 3.1.

Control box was replaced by window icon itself and even on Windows 7 seems to work the same way, double clicking on window's icon closes the window (I had to test that).

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