I think this is a good idea, and have also seen this behaviour in OS X.
However, this feature would require implementation in Metacity (the
application that draws the borders on windows).
After that, it would then need to be implemented in any program that
would want to support it. Generally the best thing for GNOME
applications would be to have an additional API to be added to GTK+ library.
Finally, the themes need to be updated to provide the new icon.
I think the correct place to start is the Metacity mailing list, so I
have copied this reply to them.
-Thomas
Leon Stringer wrote:
> Hi,
>
>
> This isn't exactly a theme issue, but I'm not sure
> where to post this.
>
>
> I wondered if anyone had ever proposed changing the
> close icon ('X')
>
> when a document is modified and unsaved.
>
>
>
> Applications on the Mac do this, the X becomes a
> circle indicating that
>
> when you click it you will be prompted to confirm the
> close or save your
> work.
>
>
> Has this been proposed in GNOME before?
>
>
>
> A number of applications use an asterisk to indicate
> unsaved work (OOo
>
> on the status bar, gEdit on the caption bar) so I
> thought changing the X
>
> to a simple 5-point asterisk might work?
>
>
>
> Obviously this would require changes to themes and
> some API
>
> functionality behind the scenes.
>
>
>
> Is there a better place to suggest this?
>
>
>
> If anyone is interested, I've done a simple mockup in
> Java.
>
> As I had to do the widgets myself they're crude (the
> asterisk looks more
>
> like a stick man). Type some text, the close gadget
> changes. Press
>
> Ctrl+S to "save" it, it changes back. Click "Close"
> when it's an 'X' and
>
> the window closes. Click "Close" when it's an '*' and
> you get a prompt.
>
>
>
> http://homepage.ntlworld.com/leon.stringer/CloseTest.jar,
> run it with
>
> "java -cp CloseTest.jar CloseTest" (Sun VM's 1.5 or
> later).
> (Screenshot:
> http://homepage.ntlworld.com/leon.stringer/close-test.png)
>
>
> I think this would give a clear, consistent indication
> of a document's
> modified state at a glance, e.g. so a user could
> quickly see they
> should save their document when leaving their desk.
>
>
> Good idea or bad idea?
>
>
>
> Leon...
>
>
>
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