[Usability] Idea for HIG: Ctrl+W to close active tab, if no tabs close window

["BJörn Lindqvist" <bjourne gmail com>]

I have noticed that there are two quite important keybindings in GNOME
that behave inconsistent.

First ctrl-w. This is actually a six year old unresolved issue [1]. And
nothing has changed!!

In Firefox, Epiphany and Galeon it closes the active tab and goes to
the previously visited tab. If there are no more tabs, then the window
is closed [4].

In Nautilus, it closes the window.

In Xchat, it closes the active tab and the tab to the left of the
active tab is activated. If there are no more tabs, then the window is
closed.

In gEdit, the active tab is closed and the tab to the left of the
active tab is activated. If gEdit has no tabs open, nothing happens.

In gnome-terminal, the active tab is closed and the tab to the left of
the active tab is activated. If there is only one tab left, then
nothing happens.

In file-roller, the opened arhive is closed. If there is no opened
archive, then nothing happens. This maybe is a bug [2].

I believe that the ctrl-w keybinding should be standardized more
across different apps. Of the different behaviours mentioned above,
only the web browsers and Nautilus gets it right, IMHO. Currently the
HIG about Ctrl-W reads:

    "Close the current document"

I propose that it be changed to:

    "Close the current document and activate the previously used
    document. If there are no more documents in the window, close it."

This is similar to and includes another earlier idea [3]. If this
change is accepted, would then maintainers agree that it makes sense
to implement ctrl+w in their apps like described? Guidelines suck when
people don't agree on following them. :)

[1] http://mail.gnome.org/archives/hig/2002-August/msg00028.html
[2] http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=328111
[3] http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=311654
[4] http://mail.gnome.org/archives/epiphany-list/2003-February/msg00025.html

--
mvh Björn