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> If you want to just redefine the meaning of that button to be "maximize,"

Mac OS is doing the redefining, here. To more than 90% of desktop users (Windows users), "maximize" means "take up all the screen".

Mac OS came up with this weird notion that it should mean something different, hence all the complaining.

Microsoft examined this problem in the 90's and reached the conclusion that the "standard" state made little sense: to a user, a window has only two states, "full screen" and "the size they resized it to".




Mac uses the word "zoom", not "maximize". And of course the "zoom" functionality predates Windows entirely.


The Zoom button was introduced in Mac OS X, it didn't exist in any Apple operating system before that.


Kindly identify the box in the upper right corner of the frontmost window in this screenshot from 1988:

http://www.guidebookgallery.org/pics/tutorials/macplus1988/f...

Hint: the name is given at the bottom. Where did you get this crazy idea?


I stand corrected.

I also notice with some humor that back then, "Zoom" enlarged the window to full size :-)


I'm pretty sure that was just an easy description for the tutorial. It always sized to fit the window's contents, but that takes too many words to describe for the context.




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