Re: Window controls for GNOME 3

[Federico Mena Quintero <federico gnome org>]

On Tue, 2011-02-22 at 21:48 -0500, Marina Zhurakhinskaya wrote:

> We've added two other ways for closing windows/applications in GNOME
> 3: a per-window close icon in the overview and a quit option in the
> application menu. The only thing that is missing is the UI ability to
> close an individual window from the desktop view. I mostly used the
> Quit option in the application menu for closing single instance
> applications, such as calculator or gconf-editor, but I had to
> remember to go to the overview if I wanted to close a Firefox
> Downloads window or an individual gedit window I no longer needed.

Be careful with this line of thinking.  You are replacing a one-step,
common operation with a two-step one that is not immediately
discoverable.

It's like saying, "well, we could show the current window's title next
to the Activities button, and since you can already move windows with
Alt-drag, we can remove titlebars altogether" :)

In general, sleek looks just for the sake of sleek looks are not good.
Things have to be comfortable to use.  A knife's handle has an awkward
shape, but the bump in the front is so your hand doesn't slip forward
and you get cut; the bump in the back is so you can pull out the knife
easily; the bump in the center is to accomodate the inside of your palm.
A knife with a sleek, cylindrical handle wouldn't be very nice to use.

  Federico