Yosemite's new Dock behavior

[Stephen Hart]

In addition to some cosmetic changes in the Dock, there's an actual functional change.
If you click the yellow window button while in an app, the window shrinks into the Dock as it always has. But instead of shrinking into the Dock icon, it shrinks into the customizable space next to the Trash, and looks like an icon of the window.

[Stephen Hart]

This actually may not be new in Yosemite, though I didn't know about it.
In System Preferences > Dock, there's a checkbox called Minimize windows into application icon

[Bob Wiswell]

You want to leave this button unchecked if you want it to go to the Dock next to the Trash. Otherwise, if you check/select the button the window goes into the app icon, just as it says. I am using Snow Leopard and it works this way.

[Stephen Hart]

You want to leave this button unchecked if you want it to go to the Dock next to the Trash. Otherwise, if you check/select the button the window goes into the app icon, just as it says. I am using Snow Leopard and it works this way.

I figured this would turn out to be a setting I didn't remember ever setting. You get used to a certain interface behavior and when it changes you think that's new. In many fields, including linguistics, that's called the "recency effect." You think because you just noticed something, it must have just sprung up.

I'll go set my prefs right now. This probably got unset when I migrated to my new iMac.