[HIG] Error in menu section - Closing SDI

[Gregory Merchan <merchan phys lsu edu>]

Looking at the many notes for discussion in the menu section, I noticed what
I believe is an error.

    If the window being closed is the last open document of that application
    then the application should, in the case of an SDI interface, leave the
    user with a blank document, . . .

Unfortunately, I don't recall the discussion of this; maybe someone will take
the time to research the mailing list archive. I'm fairly sure this was
supposed to be "in the case of an multiple-document interface". (Note also
that "SDI interface" is redundant.)

Perhaps an appropriate response to WM_DELETE_WINDOW for MDI should also be
stated in the HIG. The response I've seen is like this example from Galeon:

  +-----------------------------------------------------+
  |  .    There are multiple tabs open in this window.  |
  | /!\   Are you sure you want to close it?            |
  | """                                                 |
  |       [ ] Never show this warning again             |
  |                                                     |
  | --------------------------------------------------- |
  |           [[ Close Window ]] [ Don't Close Window ] |
  +-----------------------------------------------------+

This is from galeon 1.2.5, hence the button order. (I presume.)

I feel I must pick on various aspects of this - skip down a bit for the
proposed standard.

Having to name in the interface the controls of the interface I take
as a sign that something is wrong. Here we see tabs, windows, and
warnings explicit.

The question "Are you sure?" is probably never the correct question.
I'm not sure this has been elaborated elsewhere, but I'll assume it
has been for now.

The dreaded "Quit bugging me" checkbox.

Now, the buttons. Here we have one of those lovely instances to show why
Close buttons are a bad idea. This has been said so many times that I'm
not going to bother again. Instead, note how very similar the buttons are.
If I were the author of the Interface Hall of Shame, I'd probably make
some foolish comment about how Apple should allow Yes/No buttons. I'd
rather leave it to your wits to identify the error here and at the
Interface Hall of Shame.

On to the proposal. If MDI are to persist and if closing the toplevel window
of an MDI is to present an alert, then I propose that the primary action
of the alert be to close the foremost document, the alert have the standard
cancel button, and that closing all documents and the window be a secondary
action. The buttons would perhaps be:

|     [ Close All ] [ Cancel ] [ Close Tab ] |

Those, of course, have some of the problems noted above.


Cheers,
Greg Merchan