Re: [Usability] Quitting/Closing [Was: Ctl+W]

[David Moles <david moles vykor com>]

On Wed, 2001-12-12 at 05:21, Jeff Waugh wrote:
> <quote who="Gregory Merchan">
> 
> > To be rid of the item, the interface must single-document; i.e., SDI.
> > There are ways to do things like tabbed-MDI without a Close menu item, but
> > they tend to be awkward. As an SDI, the Quit item should also go away.
> > 
> > This leaves One Way to Do It (tm). Use the window manager close command.
> > (Either click the button or use whatever window manager shortcut is
> > assigned.)
> 
> Thoughts:
> 
>   - The two commands, Quit and Close in Netscape/Mozilla have always
>     confused me; many times I've lost all of my browsers window by hitting
>     the Quit item through muscle memory ("get rid of window, last item on
>     menu, click... BUGGER.")
> 
>   - The window manager is better at managing windows and their properties
>     (saved locations, etc) than any MDI interface.

In principle, yes -- in practice I still haven't found a window manager
whose window placement algorithm I'm happy with. (Of course it may be
that I have the illusion of better placement with MDI because the only
MDI app I use on a semi-regular basis is MS Word, and all the windows
in that are the same size and nearly always take up nearly all of the
desktop.)

Does anyone know of a window manager that includes some of the standard
MDI junk, like "cascade" and "tile"?

Another thing I've thought recently might be nice would be a mode like
the one on the Mac where you can hide the foreground application, or 
all applications other than the foreground application (without actually
minimizing them one window at a time). Or, e.g., hide all the "minor"
windows (GIMP floating palettes, etc., but not the image views) when an
application isn't in the foreground.

>   - "But tabs are great!" Tabs don't allow you to see the other documents.
>     In some cases, they're very good (browsing), in others, they're terrible
>     (graphics or publishing).

Yep. This is why it scares me when I hear people saying things like
"nobody needs manual window placement; let's go back to the PC status
quo circa 1986". (Of course, they don't *put* it that way.)

>   - The system becomes document-centric by default with multiple SDI
>     windows. This is a very good target for GNOME (especially with network
>     and component considerations).

Hear, hear. (And hey, once we get to that point, maybe we can even
implement a Mac-style single menu bar mode... :>)

--D