Re: [HIG] Policy questions

[Maciej Stachowiak <mjs noisehavoc org>]

On 28Oct2001 11:56PM (+1300), Matthew Thomas wrote:
> Gregory Merchan wrote:
> > 
> > I guess I send in my votes. :-)
> > 
> > On Mon, Oct 22, 2001 at 01:19:15PM -0700, Adam Elman wrote:
> > > Policy questions:
> > >
> > > 1. Menu item names: "Quit <appname>", "Close <appname>", or just
> > > "Quit" / "Close"?
> > 
> > Just "Quit" / "Close". Preferably no "Quit" as suggested in Matthew's
> > document.
> 
> Unsurprisingly, I agree. :-)

We should make presence or absence of Quit a separate policy
question. For the record, I disagree. I read Matthew's justification
for this (that the world will become more document-centric and
therefore that the set of documents hosted by one application will be
an arbitrary set). I disagree with that argument, for the following
reasons:

1) The reasoning does not apply to non-document-oritented applications
such as games, utility programs, terminal emulators, chat programs,
etc. Clearly "Quit" is appropriate in such cases, certainly when the
program has multiple windows.

2) The reasoning does not really apply to document-oriented
applications where the organization of the documents is more
fundamental to the UI than the documents themselves, such as a web
browser, a mail client, an addressbook, etc. When I'm reading a mail
message, I don't think of it as just any document but part of the way
I interact with my mail.

3) A key use of Quit, even using when traditional office-style
document-oriented apps, is to free up the memory being used by a given
program. For purposes of freeing memory, the set of documents hosted
by a given app is not arbitrary.

4) Quit is essential when closing all windows is distinct from
terminating the program. Consider a chat program that pops up a new
window for each message for instance (with, say, a panel applet in
lieu of a control window of some kind). Or a sticky notes app that
works that sort of way.

5) Even if the future blurs the difference between different
applications more, I think today this change would result in a whole
lot of "how do I quit" type questions on the mailing list. We should
not make usability problems in the present for the sake of consistency
witha future that may or may not arrive.


Regards,

Maciej