GNOME Bugzilla – Bug 83560
Consider using close all windows instead of quit
Last modified: 2004-12-22 21:47:04 UTC
In nautilus, the term "close all windows" is used for similar functionality to quit as in galeon. I think it would be nice for galeon to use close all windows and the associated shift+ctl+w short cut as is used nautilus. (good for desktop integration/ synergy (hows that for a reason :) )) Also the order of these two items would be switched so that in the file menu they would appear as Close _All Windows Shift+Ctl+W _Close Window Ctl+w Note only Close window would have a stock icon.
The problems I see with this: 1 Close in galeon is atm closing the tab and not the window, maybe this should be changed too ? 2 We have a session feature (enabled by a pref) that save the session on exit, label is "Save session on exit". Now renaming to Close All.. seem to make hard for the user to associate it to that feature/pref, am I on crack ? Apart that I think being consistent with nautilus is a great idea. Ccing Dan, that worked on galeon1 sessions.
Regarding close. I think that close should close the window, maybe close tab should also be added. Can session management be done using gnome-session now instead???
Close tab should probably go in the Tabs menu when it will be added. I agree that File->Close should close the window. Having close all would rock when you use --server also because it would keep the server alive. Not sure what you mean about using gnome-session. The session feature now save session on File->Quit and not when closing the whole desktop. Are you proposing to change this ? I really feel that pref crack now. It's really not obvious that when you close windows one by one nothing is saved and when you close all of them with a Quit or a Close All it will save the session .... Dan any opinion about this ? Anyway I'm for this change to go in. It doesnt seem to make the session pref more crack then before ;)
How about "Close browser" and "Close all browsers", or "Close view" and "Close all views"? I don't like having "New window" and "Close window" in the File menu and "New tab" and "Close tab" in a separate Tab menu. Separating very similar actions like that doesn't make much sense to me. Too bad the HIG document doesn't go into much detail about the standard way to do things in this case. :(
The HIG suggest to put MDI actions in a Windows (or similar, we have Tabs) menu. Close tab is definately an MDI action. I would agree to put it in File if we wouldnt have an MDI menu but we have it so it makes perfectly sense to put Close tab there ihmo.
the only thing odd about putting close tab in the tab menu is that new tab is in the file menu. So i sort of agree with Daniel that similar actions should be in the same place. Maybe close tab should only appear in the menu when tabs are open?? Not sure, Just for the sake of asking how does mozilla handle this??? Regarding session management. My personal preference is for session management to be in relation to the desktop. However i also do recognize that galeon may/most likely is used outside of gnome. So the core developers have to decide how they want to implement this. Is galeon a seperate app that should have its own form of session management, or will galeon be more integrated with the gnome-desktop and use the desktop's session management. This is really a decision core developers should make.
ok I did not think to new tab. So I think we should have: Close Window Close Tab Close All Windows This is also consistent with gnome-terminal, the only gnome tabbed application. The real problem are accellerators now. I think people are used to ctrl+w and they dont expect it to close the whole window but just the page they are viewing. Mozilla solve this by showing Close tab only when tabs are showed and switching the ctrl+w accellerator to Close tab when showed. So we could have: Close Tab ctrl+w Close Window ctrl+shift+w (both mozilla and gnome-terminal use it) Close All Windows (what we do here, nautilus accellerator would be taken by Close window ....ctrl+q could be good but break consistency, Dave ?) Additionally we can hide Close Window and rename Close Tab to Close when tabs are not showed. Is this necessary ? Gnome terminal doesnt do it and would be a bit of pain to code but prolly it's better for the user ? This is going to be a lot better than g1 I think, we just need to solve the accelleratos conflict :) Finally, Dan what's your position about sessions ? Use gnome sessions / Use galeon sessions (with the pref and disabled by default I think) / Use both?
To make the like mozilla hide thing a bit more clear: With no tabs showed you would have: Close ctrl+w Close All Windows ctrl+q With tabs showed: Close Tab ctrl+w Close Window ctrl+shift+w Close All Windows ctrl+q To solve the accellerators conflict we could probably not have an accellerator for Close Window (or find another one ...), it's a risky action after all. So: Close ctrl+w Close All Windows ctrl+shift+w and Close ctrl+w Close Window Close All Windows ctrl+shift+w This breaks consistency with gnome-terminal and mozilla. I think it's higher priority to be consistent with nautilus so I think we should either convince nautilus guys to change their accel or follow nautilus and break consistency with terminal and mozilla (last proposed solution)
Ufff I dont think I like to have just "Close" on a non tabbed window ... So my final proposal is to have: Close Tab ctrl+w Close Window (no accel or ctrl+shift+q like in gnome-terminal) Close All Windows ctrl+shift+w Close tab will obviously also close the window when on a not tabbed window ... I feel it already and improvement compared to current behavior, but please beat me with some better proposal :)
Can someone of you guys please help us with this ? We feel it like an important change and we are worried to get it wrong. Brief resume of the issue: Dave proposed to modify galeon File->Close... menus to make them more consistent with nautilus. Current galeon behavior: Close ctrl+w (close current tab and the window if it's the last one) Quit ctrl+q (close all windows) Proposed change: Close All Windows ctrl+shift+w Close Window ctrl+w (close window and all tabs inside it) Now this conflict with tabs support, because you dont have anymore a way to close a single tab. Also people use ctrl+w in other apps to close a single document (or page or ...). I dont feel very comfortable binding it to an action that will close the window and all tabs inside it. How do you think we should go here ? Should we have a "Close tab" menu and where (File/Tabs menu the alternatives) ? Which accellerator should it use and which accellerator should "Close window" use ? Any help would be really appreciated, thanks :)
I think that my favorite would be: No tabs: Close Window ctrl+w Quit ctrl+q With tabs: Close Tab ctrl+w Close Window ctrl+shift+w Quit ctrl+q I know that this conflicts with the way that things are in Nautilus. :/ If we want to just implement it the same way that Nautilus does, using Close All Windows, that's okay with me too. Should we open a new bug to discuss sessions?
Basically a decision can not be made on this bug until galeon developers choose which type of session management they want to use. If the current galeon specific session management is used than quit makes more sense. If the current session management is dropped than using close all windows makes more sense imho. assuming that galeon drops it's current session management in favor of being managed per desktop session by gnome (i'm not really familiar with the technical issues etc here) than if tabs are present perhaps the menu should read as close all windows close window close tab if no tabs are present close all windows close window opinions????
Yeah please let's open a new bug for sessions management and mark this depending on that. About your proposal Dan ... The thing I dont like much is that you switch the accellerator of the same menu in two views ... That's why I was leaving the Close Tab. Anyway if you both are happy with this I dont mind.
I posted a separate bug for sessions. Anyway I'd probably like to see this in also if we decide to keep our session management. I dont think a pref like "Save session when closing all windows" is particularly more crack than "Save session on exit". I'll try to take care of the Close tab/Close window thing in the meantime. Renaming quit will be easy ...
Close all windows does _not_ make sense for galeon. The only reason it makes sense for nautilus is because closing all windows is not equivalent to quitting- nautilus still runs to manage the desktop. If anything, it is nautilus that should be changing- since users shouldn't need to know that nautilus manages the desktop, the nautilus menu entry should be 'quit' just like every other app since the dawn of time. And that goes doubly for galeon, which does not continue running in any way[1] once all windows are closed. [1]OK, there might be a factory in the background, but that should be indicated some other way for advanced users- perhaps a pref to 'leave factory running at Quit' or some such.
I see your point and I see Dave point ... I was trying to make a good trade off between the need of nautilus/galeon interfaces consistence and galeon specificities ... As I said I'll change only Close Window and Close Tab for now.
Just to play devil's advocate to louie: 1. Why does the user need to understand if a program is in memory or not. Quiting basically means that the program will be removed from memory, but most user don't care about this fact. Close all windows in contrast to a user would mean close all the user visible instances of this program. However I do agree that close all windows just won't work while galeon does it own session management, since the distinction between galeon and the rest of the desktop is more defined then. (perhaps this bug should depend on the resolution of the session management one, what is the bug number btw). 2. I don't feel to terribly strongly about this either way, and will respect any decision galeon developers make.
Fair enough. The only difference between the two (from a user perspective, AFAICT) is that 'quit' is what has been used since the dawn of time, and what is used in the vast majority of all GNOME programs. Nautilus made an exception for a specific reason; you may or may not agree with that exception, but the solution to the exception is not to change all other apps to be that way, most likely :)
1. just for the record, the terminal doesn't have quit either.(it has close tab, close window) 2. i don't think the this is how's it been done for the last 20 years is a good reason to do something. I think that "this is how it should be cuz it's the correct way to do it" should be the reason to do something. I'm not saying i'm right, I just don't want the reason to be that everyone else does it so we should too (if we did this all the gnome dialog boxes would have a stupid button ordering etc.).
I'm going to close this as notabug as it seems to be inconsistent with the goals of the galeon developers.