Re: [Usability] Closing windows with doubleclick

[Alan Horkan <horkana maths tcd ie>]

On Thu, 16 Mar 2006, Ross Burton wrote:

> Date: Thu, 16 Mar 2006 17:13:47 +0000
> From: Ross Burton <ross burtonini com>
> To: Alan Horkan <horkana maths tcd ie>
> Cc: usability gnome org
> Subject: Re: [Usability] Closing windows with doubleclick
>
> On Thu, 2006-03-16 at 16:17 +0000, Alan Horkan wrote:
> > > 4. Closing is a not a recoverable action
> >
> > Please back up that assertion.  The point I made in my previous mail was
> > that a good application would warn you if you had any unsaved data.
> > Increasinly applications will remember window position and other state
> > information.  (The request is for close not kill or force quit.)
>
> Epiphany with 15 tabs open.  Press the window manager close button and
> *poof* all gone.

Both Mozilla and Firefox have long given warnings in that situation.  (I
see you have already responded that they chose not to show a dialog.)

There was a Mozilla extension with a name I can never remeber that would
remember the windows you had open before closing (or crashing).  I
wondered why the feature was never included by default but maybe it is
something Epiphany could do.

> > Also if we are so worried about users accidentally closing windows and if
> > it is as dangerous as others claim why is a non-destructive action like
> > Maximize put right beside the close button?  (There should be some dead
> > space between close and maximize, but maybe that is simply an issue with
> > the default Clearlooks theme.)
>
> This is why I don't have the window icon button but have Close on the
> left and maximise/minimise on the right.  If I want the menu I can
> right-click on the titlebar.  I really do think that should be the
> default layout for Metacity...

Right clicking on the title bar isn't particularly discoverable but maybe
it doesn't need to be.  I since this is only another way to present
functionality available elsewhere.  What I was thinking of was along the
lines of a Windows XP style theme I saw in SuSE which groups the two icons
for minimize and maximize together, then has roughly one icon worth of
blank space then the close icon in the corner.

Instead of just talking about it I filed a request (next thing is to
provide a patch):
http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=334795

Sincerely

Alan Horkan

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