Re: [Usability] Close buttons on instant-apply dialogs

[Pete <pete setchell goodtechnology com>]

On Mon, 2002-01-07 at 15:29, Jonathan Blandford wrote: 
> Pete <pete setchell goodtechnology com> writes:
> 
> > On Mon, 2002-01-07 at 01:05, Reinout van Schouwen wrote:
> > 
> > > As I see it there should be an accessible way to dismiss a window.
> > > IIRC Bill Haneman said that no Close button is no ironclad
> > > accessibility stopper. What about using Esc?
> > 
> > This would make a lot of vim and vi users *very* unhappy - Esc is used
> > to switch to command-mode in both of them.
> > 
> > Making the Gnome default short-cuts conflict with the most ubiquitous
> > and powerful unix editor is probably not a good plan ;-)
> 
> Find a keysym that doesn't conflict with emacs.  (-:   Gnome 
> dialogs have closed on Esc for years now, and no one's complained.  It's
> a nice shortcut, but it can't be the only way to kill a dialog.
> 
> -Jonathan
I'm not complaining about closing dialogs! 

I was just pointing out that Esc is not appropriate as an "accessible way to dismiss a window". I read this as "make Esc a shortcut for Window Manager close". If this was the case you'd risk closing your terminal window if you hit Esc in vi! 

I've already grumbled that Ctl-w is a poor choice for close window as Ctl-w is the "delete word" shortcut in Unix shells and gtk text widgets.

Of course Emacs has some random other use for it, but it looks like Ctl-w was one of the precious few shortcuts most Unix interfaces had in common before Gnome/Kde kicked off :-)

-- 
Pete Setchell
+++++
Good Technology, London