GNOME Bugzilla – Bug 116528
Perhaps the window border close button should only close the current tab
Last modified: 2004-12-22 21:47:04 UTC
Well considering that file->close only closes the current tab, I think it might be a good idea to make this consistent with window border close. The issues here are similar to the quit issue. debate: 1. Close button close closes all tabs: Convenient when you have many tabs open and just want to close the browser window, but not at all forgiving to the user. Exposes the MDI nature of the app. Used as quit by most users so its more of an application action than document action. 2. Close button closes only current tab: Slightly redundant with existing tab close. Inconvenient to a power user because it requires them to close each and every tab instead of groups of tabs. Xan has some anectdotal evidence that suggests that this might be better for newer users. Is more forgiving to user mistakes. Closing more than one tab simply requires the user to hammer the window close button a few times (not that hard really). Consistent with file->close. The best argument imo is that making it close only the current tab is much more forgiving to users who have multiple tabs already open and want to close just one but out of muscle memory developed using most non mdi apps tend towards the window border close button as oppose to the tab close button and lose all their open documents. Another option is to provide a menu entry in the tabs menu that closes the window. Considering that the tabs menu will most likely only be used by more skillful users, this might be a good comprimise. I'm comfortable with defering decision on this till post 1.0 if we want to avoid flame wars :)
I'd say to delay any discussion about this post 1.0
Dave, what about closing this ? :) It seem like such a big change would require lots of discussion on mailng list and I'm not convinced about it anyway :)