Thoughts on quitting and window controls

[Derek Broughton]

John McCabe-Dansted wrote:

> Maybe. But the paradigm isn't really that pressing the Close
> button minimizes the window to the systray. 

I beg to differ.  Think as a user, not a developer.  I submit that _users_ 
do not generally understand a difference between minimizing to the tray or 
the task bar - except that they know something minimized to the task bar is 
taking up more space.

> The paradigm is that closing a
> window closes that window *and* that closing a window never closes a
> service. 

Again, I disagree.  Users think "close" and don't stop to think...

> I think most people would be confused if e.g. clicking close on
> the main sound preferences dialog stopped the sound server.

...what closing a sound server means.  I think most people are confused by 
_any_ change to their system.  [I'm confused by the fact that Firefox now 
has the ability to hang my entire machine, which it only started to do with 
the last upgrade]  Yes, making the close button shut down a server and the 
minimize button minimize to either the task bar or the system tray _would_ 
be initially confusing but imo is more logical, and would be more intuitive.

> Arguably, the
> fact that you can get the window back via the systray doesn't mean that
> the *window* has been minimized to the systray any more than saying that
> we "minimize" a document window to the "My Documents" folder.

Certainly it doesn't - but it means nothing to the user that the window was 
actually destroyed rather than minimized.

> 
> I think nobody expects the "X" button to close services that were started
> on start-up.

I think you're wrong.  I think the typical user is surprised to find that 
those things are still running after he's "closed" them.  Unfortunately, 
what you and I _think_ is pretty much irrelevant, since nobody has ever made 
much attempt to figure out what our _users_ think.
-- 
derek