Thoughts on quitting and window controls

[Florian Diesch]

Jonathan Blackhall <johnny.one.eye at gmail.com> writes:

> It's very confusing for me when I click the big 'X' in my window controls,
> only to find that the application I was attempting to close has since been
> minimized to my system try (or notification area or its respective indicator
> applet or wherever it goes instead of quitting).  Examples of programs with
> this behavior include Rhythmbox and Empathy in the default install.  To me,
> the 'X' signifies closing and quitting the application. 

As far as I know it has always been "Close this window".

> I can only assume that developers' theories behind this (which is definitely
> not a problem unique to Ubuntu) stem from them telling themselves that no
> one would actually want to Quit their application.  "What they *really* mean
> to do is close the window, but keep the application running silently.  So
> I'll just save them the trouble of accidentally quitting by changing the
> function of that 'X' button."  I just dislike the fact that it sends mixed
> signals.  After all, if I click 'X' in Firefox or in gEdit or in a whole
> host of other applications, I'm quitting and completely closing it. 

In Firefox and gEdit clicking the "X" means "Close this windows", not
"Quit this app" - just try it with multiple windows open.


> Why must this be different in Rhythmbox?

Think about Rhythmbox as some kind of service running in the
background. The window is just a user interface for that service that
you can close if you don't need it, without stopping the service.



   Florian
-- 
Simple dict-like Python API for GConf:
<http://www.florian-diesch.de/software/easygconf/>