GNOME Bugzilla – Bug 524730
Please use ctrl+w to close application
Last modified: 2012-07-20 20:13:48 UTC
gnome-system-monitor should use ctrl+w to exit instead of ctrl+q.
Why ? http://library.gnome.org/devel/hig-book/stable/input-keyboard.html.en It says that Ctrl+Q is the standard for "Quit the application" ?
Yes, but I don't that that is valid for single-document apps like gnome-system-monitor. I open the system monitor window by left-clicking on the applet in the menu. Then I dismiss it by closing the window, the application doesn't quit since it is still running in the panel. There has been lots of talk on the mailing lists about ctrl+q vs. ctrl+w and I think in general ctrl+w was the more preferred option.
multiload-applet and system-monitor are not the same application. If you don't run the applet, do you think it would still make sense to use Ctrl+w ?
Yes, but it is your choice. Lots of prior discussion: http://mail.gnome.org/archives/hig/2002-August/msg00028.html http://mail.gnome.org/archives/usability/2005-December/msg00017.html http://mail.gnome.org/archives/usability/2006-April/msg00016.html http://mail.gnome.org/archives/epiphany-list/2003-February/msg00025.html and bug reports and complaints. But no definite answer yet. Only thing you can do is try and convince as many project leaders as possible that ctrl+w is the right choice so that sometime in the future there will be only one keybinding to close them all, one keybinding to find. :)
Don't you think that some users would expect ctrl+w to close a tab rather than the whole application ?
There is only one way to find out...
*** Bug 587513 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Marking this as WONTFIX, as even the latest HIG [1] suggests Ctrl+Q for closing an application, and Ctrl+W for closing a document. As System Monitor is an application (does not handle documents at all), it should be closed with Ctrl+Q, as it is. [1] http://developer.gnome.org/hig-book/3.5/input-keyboard.html.en#standard-shortcuts