X to Close – The origins of the use of [x] in UI design. (2014)

&gt;Batsu (x) is the symbol for incorrect, and can represent false, bad, wrong or attack, while maru (o) means correct, true, good, whole, or something precious. Another familiar example of batsu&#x2F;maru is in the Playstation controller design, where maru and batsu are used for yes and no.<p>Interestingly, ╳ is no&#x2F;◯ is yes only on Playstation games released in Japan. For games released everywhere else in the world, it&#x27;s reversed (which I always found odd, since I think of X as a pretty universal symbol for &quot;no&quot;). Previous HN discussion speculating on reasons for the switch here: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=8171430">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=8171430</a>

Interestingly, ArthurOS (what would eventually be renamed to RISC OS) version 1.2 from 1987 already used an [x] to close (<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;guidebookgallery.org&#x2F;screenshots&#x2F;riscos12" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;guidebookgallery.org&#x2F;screenshots&#x2F;riscos12</a>) thus predating NeXTSTEP.

&gt; No [x] to close these 1980&#x27;s text editors either. X was commonly used to delete characters in-line, but not to close the program.<p>Not <i>quite</i> true. In Vim, :x means ‘save and close buffer’, and is a synonym for :wq. (Not sure if this was present in earlier Vi or not, but I believe it was.)

It&#x27;s interesting that in the context of a pirate map, X, marks the spot of the treasure to be found while in another context, X, means close the window or &quot;incorrect.&quot; I wonder which one will be most accurate for Twitter&#x27;s new branding?

&gt; And Linux GUI’s started to use the [x] symbol only after the release of Windows 95.<p>Which? The website linked to is hardly comprehensive [1]. There&#x27;s literally tonnes of X window managers pre-1993 [2].<p>[1] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;web.archive.org&#x2F;web&#x2F;20160516213015&#x2F;http:&#x2F;&#x2F;whiteandnoisy.org:80&#x2F;linux.html" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;web.archive.org&#x2F;web&#x2F;20160516213015&#x2F;http:&#x2F;&#x2F;whiteandno...</a><p>[2] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikibooks.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Guide_to_X11&#x2F;Window_Managers" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikibooks.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Guide_to_X11&#x2F;Window_Managers</a>

Came across this interesting take:<p>&gt; When I see an &quot;X&quot; in the corner of an image I see on screen, it feels as though clicking on it will make it go away. Now, clicking on an &quot;X&quot; is supposed to feel like a way to take me onto The Website Formerly Known as Twitter. But my instinct is to click when something is annoying me, not to click when I want more.<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;althouse.blogspot.com&#x2F;2023&#x2F;07&#x2F;a-problem-with-x.html" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;althouse.blogspot.com&#x2F;2023&#x2F;07&#x2F;a-problem-with-x.html</a>

NeXTSTEP ended up being the visual foundation and the actual foundation of the two major operating systems that it had sought to supplant in the first place.

So were did NeXT get it?<p>Before that I assume “x” was a metaphor for crossing out the page of text or paragraph marking it invalid. That is probably not as universal.<p>Windows 3 was using “x” in checkboxes as well, I wonder if switching to checkmarks is connected to putting “x” on the “close window” button.

Another example from 1987, England RISC OS <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=3N2FF9h-aL0">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.youtube.com&#x2F;watch?v=3N2FF9h-aL0</a><p>It sounds wild that the X == denial originates from Japan.

The left-hand title bar button in Windows 3.x was not a close button, mind, it opened the title bar dropdown menu (which was changed to a right-click context menu in Windows 95).

Surprising that the article doesn’t mention the word eXit.

This is another reason why the &quot;X&quot; rebrand of twitter is not only a good idea: I&#x27;ve already pressed the &quot;X&quot; logo to close the window.

But classic Mac OS <i>did</i> have an X close button. Sure, it&#x27;s a square in the screen shots but what happens when you click on it?

Back in the early 2000s, I had a Windows 3.1 386 machine to myself as my family was using the new PC at the time. The glaring difference to me was the missing &quot;X&quot; so I programmed a small window that would dock on the corner of the active window and provide an X close button (as well as maximize, minimize as the real ones were now obscured by that window). It was very hacky-spaghetti Visual Basic code using whatever I can figure out from WinAPI documentations I could find and I was too inexperienced back then. But it worked. My older brother didn&#x27;t realize the &quot;X&quot; wasn&#x27;t supposed to exist and it even ended up getting bundled with someone&#x27;s Calmira fork. Good times.

This headline is deceptive: it starts with &quot;X to Close&quot;. When I first read this, I thought this means that X (formerly Twitter) was closing. Then my urge to cheer loudly was suddenly quashed when I read the rest of the headline.

Well the song “straight edge” by Minor Threat and the subsequent movement happened in 1981 and they used the X to indicate they abstained from drink&#x2F;drugs (closing them down as it were). Perhaps that is where it came from??

One of my favorite fumbles from Google&#x27;s AMP project. For a while, if you navigated to an AMP site from the carousel...The [X] on the AMP-injected header would send them back to Google, rather than dismiss the header.

Bunch of previous discussion from 2014:<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=8171340">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&#x2F;item?id=8171340</a>

Reading artile with this Fwm4 theme <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.xfce-look.org&#x2F;p&#x2F;1211669&#x2F;" rel="nofollow noreferrer">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.xfce-look.org&#x2F;p&#x2F;1211669&#x2F;</a> and saying &quot;really? atari? maru?&quot;

The twitter re-branding really makes sense to me now.

First impression reading the headline was that Musk is even more impetuous than I’d thought.

From now on, clicking [x] anywhere in an UI will open Twitter.

I heard that actually american copycat from japanese culture

The big question is: why do people still put a &quot;Quit&quot; MenuItem in their File menu ?

There is a huge difference between X and ×. The former has angles != 90 degrees, unlike the latter.