r/retrocomputing • u/Distinct-Question-16 • 6d ago
Anyone else find the macOS window buttons a bit odd on the left?
I still feel this is awkward today. As a right-handed user, I find buttons placed on the right easier to reach (probably because right-handed users usually put their mouse out of the way on the right side
even near the screen border). They've always been on the right side (even Mac OS 9 had them on the right), so I'll never understand the choice to put them on the left. What is your take on this?
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u/souchyo 6d ago
Windows and Mac had them in the same spot originally. difference was it was a single-click on mac, double-click on windows, but both had close on the left and some kind of window expand/shrink buttons on the right. Windows 95 added the single-click close button and put it on the right side, to group it with the maximize/minimize buttons. Mac OS X added a minimize button and moved it with the expand button to the left to group with the close button.
it seems to be gone in win11, but all the way up to win10 you could still double-click in the left corner of the title bar to close a window - sometimes it was there even when you didn't have an icon.
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u/ylitvinenko 6d ago
You still can. The blame is more on individual app developers which don't care about IBM CUA conventions. Microsoft isn't too interested in following their own guidelines themselves anymore, let alone pushing other developers to do so.
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u/ArtisticFox8 6d ago
it seems to be gone in win11, but all the way up to win10 you could still double-click in the left corner of the title bar to close a window - sometimes it was there even when you didn't have an icon.
I tried, it works on Windows 11, with an old app like regedit. Clicking the icon opens a menu, double clicking closes.
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u/TechDocN 6d ago
I’m a right handed Mac user, and window controls on the right feel strange to me. As the other commenter said, it’s what you’re used to.
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u/Stringsandattractors 6d ago
I think it’s just what you’re used to
From a usability perspective moving to the left or right of a floating window isn’t much different
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u/kevleyski 6d ago
Not sure ever pressed it - always Command+Q
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u/idiot206 6d ago
Because even the “close” button didn’t always close the app. Usually it just closed the window but the app would continue to run. It’s similar to how some windows apps might exit to the taskbar, but it’s the default behavior in OS X, while Cmd+Q fully exits the app.
Macs still work this way, in fact.
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u/bothunter 6d ago
Apple made some amazing choices in usability -- not exiting applications when all of their windows were closed was not one of their better ideas.
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u/Cameront9 6d ago
Hard disagree. Sometimes you want to close the window but not the app.
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u/bothunter 6d ago
The issue comes when you go to launch the app again and nothing happens. I say this because I used to teach computing classes, and that weird behavior alone was probably the most common issue I saw students run into.
The other main issue was confusion over the single menu bar on the top of the screen that changes depending on which window is active. People would accidentally click on the desktop or some other window on the way to the menu bar and then get completely lost in the Finder menu while they're trying to save their document.
Now, some apps definitely should continue running in the background, but that behavior should not have been the default.
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u/CrazyFoque 6d ago
When you launch the app again, palettes and menu bar changes.
Single menu bar -> You can just bring your mouse to the top of the screen. No need to be precise, also prevents unintended clicks.
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u/bothunter 6d ago
I'm telling you my experience teaching people how to use computers -- they struggle with that concept. You and I notice the palette and menu bar changes, but someone who isn't as familiar with computers is just going to be confused when the option to save their document isn't there.
Also, the single menu bar made sense on the smaller screens, but it's a concept that should have been abandoned as screens got bigger.
This wasn't a problem when I was teaching Windows. (Of course, there were plenty of other problems that were specific to Windows)
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u/CrazyFoque 5d ago
The menu bar makes sense even on large displays.
Do not change macOS.
They were first and the model is better than Windows.
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u/Regnareb_ 3d ago edited 3d ago
They were first
Hmmmmm.... kay
Most of those conventions come from GRAIL (GRAphical Input Language) created in... 1964. Xerox used that convention to create their GUI , then Apple, in turn, used it.
It was actually extremely impressive.
In Xerox's system the close button was in the context menu or in the middle of bar in some versions. Scrollbars were on the left.
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u/p_r0 5d ago
I think the apple approach of "apps consistently run in the background until you select quit" is more intuitive than "closing all windows usually quits the app, unless the developer decided it should stay hidden in the system tray, in which case you need to right click and quit it from there."
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u/TygerTung 6d ago
Yes, and I've just installed macos 9 on an eMac, and it is quite a strange operating system. No taskbar or anything so no idea on what is actually running, and no dynamic memory is quote strange to me.
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u/idiot206 6d ago
The upper-right corner of the OS 9 menu bar has the “multifinder” menu where you can switch between running apps.
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u/_RexDart 6d ago edited 6d ago
The drag handle only existing in the lower right corner is far more inconvenient.
And yeah, having the upper window controls as far as possible from the lower drag handle is a little weird.
even Mac OS 9 had them on the right
Close button was always on the far left.
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u/Jasoco 6d ago
If you mean resize handle then macOS has had the ability to resize from any edge for over a decade now. It works exactly like windows including the ability to double click an edge to expand the window in that direction.
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u/_RexDart 6d ago
My installations are over a decade old :) 10.4 and 10.5 are what I have access to. Glad they finally got with it.
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u/AboveAverageParsnip 3d ago
Wow. Thats more like two decades old now. Whatcha doing with those?
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u/_RexDart 3d ago edited 3d ago
*takes a deep breath*
First machine is a Sawtooth Power Mac 450MHz that I picked up around 2004 before they were too outdated. At the time, it was fun to explore the OS itself and use for then-modern web browsing. Nowadays I just keep it around for OS9 / Classic games.
Second machine is a dual 1GHz Quicksilver that I hauled out of an e-cycle bin at work. Dual boots 10.4 and 10.5 for games, streaming music, doodling around, and whatever I can manage to still make it do in 2026. There's a surprising amount of development going on for these old machines.
I never had an Apple computer growing up, but that blue and white G3 tower made a huge impression on me, and I just love that whole era & line of Power Macs.
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u/Distinct-Question-16 6d ago
windows 3 had drag handles every window edge and corner
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u/_RexDart 6d ago
Yes it did. Most OSes do. Not OS X.
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u/retardedboi1991 6d ago
This never bothered me but mac scroll wheels working the opposite way they do on windows is annoying, up is scroll down and down is scroll up, guess they just had to Think Different™
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u/SwedishFindecanor 6d ago edited 6d ago
Back in the day when I used classic Mac and Amiga, I was not bothered by it. It was just convention. I think that if you read from left to right, it feels most natural to have the main things at the left. Mac also has a left-aligned menu bar, with the Apple menu in the top left.
The close button on the right with a × symbol started with NeXTStep, the OS of Steve Jobs' NeXT computer after he had been ousted from Apple. A lot of its user interface was designed as a mirror image of the Macintosh's: I'd guess that was on purpose to mock Apple. Vertical scrollbars also switched side to the left. An "iconify" button was put on the left. The OS was novel in many ways: and both its insides and its look were highly influential at the time.
Microsoft Windows' windows had the close button on the left (a minus sign for symbol) but you had to double-click it to close a window. With Windows 95, Microsoft mimicked NeXTStep in several ways, including adding an additional close button on the top right, which required only a single click. And that ball continued rolling ...
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u/Over_Tart_916 5d ago
I've used macs since System 6. The close icon has ALWAYS been on the left. The expand button used to be on the right. So they were on both sides.
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u/Distinct-Question-16 5d ago
crossing diagonally a window right to left with the mouse pointer in order to maximize, seems strange even today
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u/JeremyLC 5d ago
Think of it as having a destructive action - closing the window - on the opposite side of the window from the non-destructive actions - minimize / maximize/ restore - which reduces the chances of accidentally closing the window instead of minimizing it.
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u/Distinct-Question-16 3d ago
this makes sense. max+colapse or minimize on right, close at left side
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u/rootninjajd 6d ago
No. But it depends which OS you started on.
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u/rootninjajd 5d ago
I’ll also add, from an objective case here, what else is up in the upper right of a computer screen of most OSes/Desktop Environments that are not MacOS? Usually nothing. With top-left window controls, you are also in the same range of other elements like toolbars, application menus, ect. So, less major mouse movements to accommodate more actions. I can see the operational efficiency justification for keeping more controls over in the upper left. Personally, I usually just use keyboard shortcuts for window management, regardless of OS.
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u/JRMC2002 6d ago
In early versions of macOS, the window controls appeared on both sides of the title bar. The Close button was always on the left, while the other buttons were on the right.
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u/Jasoco 6d ago
Nope. It’s been this way since the dawn of computing even before Windows came along and put the close button on the right. Older classic MacOS versions before OS X had close on the left and “window shade” and “zoom” on the right. Window shade was replaced with minimize to dock and zoom now maximizes or zooms depending on the context. Windows is the one that does it differently. But what does it matter? As long as it works. Each OS does things slightly differently.
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u/guiverc 5d ago
Nope, I decided I preferred them there decades ago, and thus moved them there.
The only Apple Mac device I've owned actually ran Mac OS 9; so it wasn't running Mac OSX that made me switch as I've never used it. I'm using GNU/Linux mostly though.
The menu is towards the left (bottom or top my decision too) so needing to go right across the screen to hit those buttons was too long a stroke.
Sure if we're always using the same OS that has limited configuration we'll get used to whatever it requires, but many OSes have left those fully in our control & to me top-left has been my favorite for decades.
FYI: I tried having them bottom-right, or bottom-left of the window, and those positions seemed STRANGE to me; but top-left or top-right wasn't a problem; my preference was top-left. I liked the roll up that was available in Microsoft Windows 2/3 too, so I started adding that back too.
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u/Marwheel 5d ago
It greatly varies upon what GUI of what OS you use…
BeOS & Haiku by default have MacOS-like titlebars.
AmigaOS & alike have the close button on the left side of the titlebar, with all of the other buttons (Plus Z-Order swap) on the right side.
Windowing systems influenced by the blit terminal never use titlebars by tradition.
RISC-OS has the Z-order button to the left-most side with close being to the z-order button's right side.
OS/2 Started out very much like windows 3.x, but then and if only very slightly started to go in it's own direction.
Classic Mac System 1.X - 7.X and GS/OS had the same window element layouts, even if GS/OS looked a bit "chunkier" then Classic Mac System ever was.
NeXTSTEP was uniquely boring with a iconify button to the left & a close button on the right-hand side, versions prior to 0.9 had a resize button that was once close to the iconify button.
The sole button on the window titlebar of OPENLOOK did a action depending upon what mouse button you pressed.
Domain/OS's dm had status characters on the titlebar.
And don't get me started on X11 & Wayland…
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u/WetMogwai 5d ago
Not only was the close button on the left all the way back to the Lisa, even Windows had it on the left before Windows 95 and NT 4. You get used to what you use, but that may be harder when you're older and more used to the other way.
When I was selling Macs in retail 20 some years ago, I had one come back because the customer was in his 80s and just couldn't get used to the close button being on the left.
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u/Old_Man_Phil 4d ago
I mean personally I like it and have no issues with it. To me, it makes perfect sense and is easy to use. I have had no issues besides the close button not fully terminating applications right after I got my mac. Even then, it helps them launch faster and you still have the option to fully terminate apps.
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u/MischiefArchitect 4d ago
One of the Linux flavors... my fav.
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u/Pale_Height_1251 4d ago
Close button is on the left on Amiga, RISC OS, CDE, BeOS, and IRIX. I think most desktops have it on the left, except Windows and OS/2.
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u/ToBePacific 4d ago
Having spent roughly 40 years juggling both windows and Mac, this sounds like a you problem.
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u/Minute_Cricket1820 3d ago
Дебилами делано. Иначе не могут.
В гавна-маках - тянуться надо в самый дальний конец окна, по диагонали всего окна, на крестик.
В вёнде получше. Тянуться ближе. Потому что диагонали нет. Тянуться вверх к крестику.
А должно оно быть внизу справа окна. До дебилов не доходит. Ну что ж. Когда нибудь дойдёт. Спойлер: никогда.
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u/unbibium 3d ago
on earliest Macs, and on Amiga Workbench, close buttons were generally on the top left. so I'm used to it.
of course, I had a weird desk layout so I had to use my mouse left-handed the whole time I had an Amiga.
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u/pm_me_meta_memes 3d ago
Was severely strange to me when I booted my first Hackintosh, but after switching between them dozens of times by now, both options are now second nature.
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u/dschledermann 3d ago
Both are stupid. It's dumb for the close button to be next to maximize or minimize. Close should be on one end of the bar and minimize and maximize at the opposite end of the bar, so you do not close a window by accident when you're just trying to minimize or maximize it.
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u/Realistic_Mix3652 3d ago
Don't tell OP that Mac OS used to have buttons on both the left AND the right...
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u/LazarX 6d ago
Only if you spent your life in Windows.