GNOME Bugzilla – Bug 99335
Shortcut for logging out
Last modified: 2020-11-07 12:36:25 UTC
There should be a shortcut that allows for logging out of the desktop environment (or rather, bringing up the logout dialog). In Windows, this shortcut is Alt+F4 (given that there are no active windows). I suggest that it be this way too in GNOME. There's a corresponding HIG bug about this; bug 97174.
what about ctrl+alt+del?
Ctrl+Alt+Del on Windows NT or later brings up a dialog with many choices, where one of them is to lock the screen and another one is to logout (although I haven't been able to verify the latter, this part is just taken from memory). There's more options, at least one that starts the task manager etc. While I know there are many users familiar with this dialog and how to get to it, I believe there are more users that don't associate Ctrl+Alt+Del with this dialog, but rather "destructive" actions like instant rebooting, killing applications etc; "rude" actions that have a destructive effect on the system. Thus, I think it would be bad to only rely on Ctrl+Alt+Del for grouping functionality like this, as many users would probably be intimitated to use it. On the other hand, the Alt+F4 shortcut for bringing up just the logout dialog in a nice way extends the concept of application closing to also include the desktop, and is probably more familiar to many Windows users, and isn't associated with actions that cause permanent damage.
FWIW, when I use Windows, I'm more careful with ALT+F4 than I am with CTRL+ALT+DEL, since the former can lose data (say you accidentally ALT+F4 that important email message or document before sending/saving it). Adding bugsquad keyword.
I don't think we should work around application bugs this way -- it's an application bug if the application exits without offering to save your unsaved or unsent data. Both Evolution and gedit do the right thing here, btw.
Well, my intended point was that neither of these shortcuts can be relied upon to be non-destructive. And in my personal experience, ctrl+alt+del is the more predictable of the two. At least on Windows 2000, it always brings up the log in/out dialog, whereas pressing alt+f4 without knowing what window is focused is playing data loss roulette. My only other concern is that, since the alt+f4 shortcut is almost always used to close windows rather than used to log out, it isn't any more intuitive than ctrl+alt+del. I'm removing myself from the CC list, since I already get the metacity-qa-maint mail. No use getting any replies twice. :)
> And in my personal experience, ctrl+alt+del is the more predictable > of the two. At least on Windows 2000, it always brings up the log > in/out dialog, whereas pressing alt+f4 without knowing what window > is focused is playing data loss roulette. That may be your personal experience, but it's not something that I've witnessed by observing users. Many of them have learned Alt+F4, but noone of them used Ctrl+Alt+Del to log out of Windows. The Alt+F4 shortcut is also visible in the interface (it's listed in the menus), whereas Ctrl+Alt+Del isn't, so there's an important visual hint missing there. Also, many of those that have used both Windows 2000 and 9x are unsure of the effects of Ctrl+Alt+Del when asked about it, so they prefer not to use it. Interestingly, they also rarely associate it with the action of logging out. > My only other concern is that, since the alt+f4 shortcut is almost > always used to close windows rather than used to log out, it isn't > any more intuitive than ctrl+alt+del. It's a logical extension of the "close" metaphor, since it uses the same shortcut. You close windows, and when there are no windows left it closes that big thing that contained the windows. "Closing the shop for today" etc, so the conceptual model probably also fits with real-life affordances that way.
>That may be your personal experience, but it's not something that I've >witnessed by observing users. Many of them have learned Alt+F4, but >noone of them used Ctrl+Alt+Del to log out of Windows. Fair enough. I simply haven't ever observed one of these people. Virtually all of the people I've seen log out of Windows use the mouse, and the remainder (majority systems admins and developers) have used ctrl+alt+del. >It's a logical extension of the "close" metaphor, since it uses the >same shortcut. Yeah, that makes sense. It might be nice to know what shortcut (if any) some non-windows systems use.
Windows XP: Press Windows key (or Ctrl+Esc), then U. The not-quite-so-mouseless way: click on desktop, then Alt-F4. (Note: ctrl-alt-del pops up the task manager dialog, which isn't really the same thing, although it does also contain a shutdown button IIRC). Mac OSX: Command-Shift-Q. CDE: no keyboard shortcut AFAIK
Maybe the right implementation is that we sensitize "close" on the desktop window and panel window (try the silly Alt+rightclick thing on them now, it's all disabled). And then when the panel or desktop gets a delete_event, it initiates a logout.
Eek, I had no idea Alt-right click / Alt-Space worked on the desktop :) Not sure it makes sense just to enable "Close" on that menu since the other items can presumably never be enabled[1] (and half of them don't even make sense for a workspace), which is a bit of HIG blooper. Perhaps if you could hack it so that only "Close" appeared (suitably re-labelled to "Log Out")... Or, as the original reporter said, it might just be nicer to assign a global shortcut to Log Out... Shift-Ctrl-Q, if we followed the Mac model. [1] Actually this isn't quite true, if you run nautilus under CDE you get the whole nautilus desktop in a framed window, which is nice...
Right, the menu there should probably die or be different. I was just suggesting the implementation detail that if panel/desktop get a delete_event they initiate a logout. For panel, maybe "if the last panel open gets a delete_event"
In Red Hat we just bound gnome-session-save to one of the run_command keys, which seems pretty sane. The shortcut I used was ctrl+alt+del since people seem to expect that.
They might expect that if they're not used to Windows, if they are they'll probably want Ctrl-Alt-Del to pop up a task manager :) (Ctrl-Alt-Del has never been the primary way to log out of Windows IIRC-- although you did have to press it to log into NT, curiously-- so it would be kind of interesting to find out where people actually got that expectation from.)
I think various historical linux desktops/wms have bound ctrl+alt+del to logout, that's probably the origin of the expectation.
Updating status_whiteboard field to reflect A11Y team's assessment of accessibility impact.
*** Bug 110183 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
I'd like more options for gnome-session-save such as gnome-session-save --logout gnome-session-save --logout --nodialog gnome-session-save --restart gnome-session-save --restart --nodialog gnome-session-save --shutdown gnome-session-save --shutdown --nodialog I could then bind these to whatever keys I like.
Requests for gnome-session-save features need to be filed against gnome-session, they won't be seen/tracked here.
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Is there any way to steal the power button signal? In windows xp, you can make it have it shut down windows the right way when you push the power button once. If you hold it for 10 seconds, it does a force shut down. This probably is more of a kernel thing than a gnome thing, but I would like to see this.
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An argument agains ALT+F4: it will close all windows in a workspace before logout. Current Ctrl+Alt+Del is good because it's also used to reboot when in text mode. Non-technical users can use menu option to logout. However, having Ctrl+Alt+Del bringing up gnome-system-monitor with processes list as in MS Windows would be nice. In this case, to what key should logout be mapped? One of the multimedia keys like Power? (most new keyboards I've seen have Power, Sleep, Wakeup buttons)
*** Bug 311690 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
When filing my bug I wasn't aware that this issue is now almost three years old. Wow! :-) In my opinion this is technically simple to do, and quite important detail of an usable desktop, so it is strange that no conclusion has been reached so far. Alt+F4 would be my preffered choice, being continuation of the "close" metaphore. But, it is better to have any key combination standard than none, as it is now.
FWIW, as a result of bug 97174,the HIG does actually already say that Ctrl-Alt-Del should be used for this: http://developer.gnome.org/projects/gup/hig/2.0/input-keyboard.html#standard-shortcuts (Table 10.12)
Calum: so does that mean the HIG won't be updated for bug 130632? Also, note that we've been blocking on getting a usability team call for whether to use Ctrl-alt-del for logout (bug 150669) or the system-monitor (bug 130632); see bug 150669 comment 2.
Personally, I'm not sure it matters... I'd vote for using the same shortcut either way, and just make sure there's a Log Out button in the system monitor if that's what we decide the shortcut should do (which is how Windoze does it, and presumably copying Windoze is the only reason anyone would want Ctrl-Alt-Del to pop up the system monitor in the first place?) The HIG can certainly be updated either way; the entry is just in there to make sure that people don't re-use whatever shortcut we decide. Backwards compatability isn't an issue until we've implemented it for the first time, so we can change it to whatever we like at this stage. If nobody else on the usability team is willing to make the call, I'd be happy to support anyone who wanted to make "Ctrl-Alt-Del = System monitor with a prominent logout button" :)
I would like you to take into consideration that this is mostly needed to allow easy keyboard access to log out feature. It is important to measure number of key strokes needed for both actions: - starting directly Logout window with "Alt+F4", navigating with arrows to "Shut Down" radiobutton and press Enter, or - starting system monitor window with "Ctrl+Alt+Delete", then navigating with Tab to the "LogOut" button to open "Log Out" window, then (copy previous actions here) ... It is clear that second solution is much more complicated, and from the status of quick keyboard access is not optimal. If you still think it is needed, why not implement both ways, just as in Windows OS ?
I think Ctrl+Alt+Delete should be used myself.
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Ubuntu seem to have done this downstream. Does anyone know how they did it?
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