On Tue, May 18, 2010 at 10:38 AM, David Hamm <davidth...@gmail.com> wrote: > Close=quit, some apps could just minimize to tray by default (music > player). The music tray would already provide more function then the > taskbar, no reason to minimize it there.
That doesn't make sense to me. How, then, do we differentiate between these two? How do you quit Rhythmbox if Close=Quit, and why does Media›Close in its menu not do the same thing as Media›Quit? ;) More importantly, though, why should users know this? Close means close; it precisely communicates “I am really not using this any more.” For most cases (eg: gedit) an application's services are entirely contained within a window, so it makes sense for the application to exit when that window is closed. For others, like Rhythmbox or Empathy, the application provides other services (music playing in the background, podcasts being downloaded, more than one window being open), so closing a single window does not exit the application. My belief here is we need to establish a scenario where users never think about Quitting applications; just doing things with them, then putting those things away. Applications should quit themselves when they aren't useful, and in doing so nothing in the surrounding UI should change, so those applications can be reactivated seamlessly when the user wants them again. I think we're getting there, too. The messaging indicator is a step in that direction because a messaging app is there whether it's running or not. Unity's launcher looks kind of cool, and Gnome Shell may be doing something quite smart. I think smartphone OSs are seriously awesome stuff, making do without minimizing, or maximizing, or resizing, or any of that bother. When they multitask, it is especially fascinating design. Android has an interesting design to this end: http://android-developers.blogspot.com/2010/04/multitasking-android-way.html Dylan _______________________________________________ Mailing list: https://launchpad.net/~ayatana Post to : ayatana@lists.launchpad.net Unsubscribe : https://launchpad.net/~ayatana More help : https://help.launchpad.net/ListHelp
