Re: ANNOUNCE: Style Guide available for review.

[Tom Tromey <tromey creche cygnus com>]

>> Menubars should contain a 'File' menu which is the first menu
>> button on the left side.  Usage of the 'File' menu in all GNOME
>> applications guarentees a consistant interface, and allows the user
>> to find the 'Exit' or 'Close' function quickly.

Sascha> I still can not understand why people think, that Exit and
Sascha> File have somthing in common!

Sascha> Exit is something that the windowmanager takes care of. And if
Sascha> you want it in the application create a application menu,
Sascha> which contains some other global application entries like "Bug
Sascha> report" of "Preferences".


One reason why you want Exit on a menu is that you want it to have a
key binding for it.  App-global items that have key bindings probably
should also have menu entries.

Also, note that wms have two things they can do: they can request that
a window be closed (which is different from exiting an app), or they
can kill the app's connection to the X server (which I think should be
treated as an exceptional thing).


Sure, we could require a wm to talk CORBA to every app to ask them to
exit.  But this seems like overkill, particularly when putting Exit on
the File menu is basically enshrined in every existing GUI style.

BTW the File menu is the application menu.  That's one reason you have
to be able to rename it when the situation warrants.

Tom