History of WindowShade

WindowShade was originally developed for System 6.0.7 by Rob Johnston, President and Director of Engineering, at Interactive Technologies, Inc .

According to Wikipedia , Apple Computer purchased the rights to this software from the developer and debut WindowShade as part of System 7.5.

Before “collapsing windows” were a part of Mac’s appearance options in Mac OS 7.5, there was WindowShade. The author says the following in the accompanying about file:

WindowShade is a unique window enhancement utility for the Macintosh. WindowShade gets its name from the old window blinds that roll up when given a sturdy pull. This utility brings the same functionality to Macintosh windows.

By placing the control panel in the System Folder, your windows are given a brand new feature. By double clicking anywhere on the title bar of a window, the lower part of the window will “roll up” underneath the title bar. Double clicking on the title bar again will lower the window to its original size.

When Apple released Mac OS 8, the WindowShade feature was implemented as a part of the Appearance Manager. A widget was added to the title bar to reproduce the functionality.

With the release of Mac OS X (1999), WindowShade was completely eliminated in favor of other technology, such as minimizing windows to the Dock, or moving them aside with Expose. Apple apparently decided there was no more use for WindowShade.

A third party developer by the name of Unsanity, resurrected WindowShade for Mac OS X as a haxie™. Haxies were modifications to the system that used code-injection to perform their magic. Although software from Unsanity ran great for a few years, ultimately, updates became non-existent. Users were forced to either wait to upgrade their OS until a working version of WindowShade was released, or update their OS and forego WindowShade functionality. By the time an update was ready for Mac OS 10.6, Mac OS 10.7 had already been released. When Unsanity started asking for prepayment as a method of voting on which haxie they would update first, I decided to give up on using Unsanity’s version of WindowShade.