My original explanation of this problem was unfortunately somewhat confused, and emphasized the problem I'm having with my hardware (an Inspiron 1420N, ironically chosen in an attempt to avoid such problems). My apologies for my confusion.
Let's rewind and assume that my hardware works perfectly--the power button is only "pressed" when I press it, and suspend and hibernate work fine. Now, I press the power button and this "Shut Down the Computer" dialog comes up. On my computer, some of the time it starts iconified for some reason, but again, let us assume the best and say that it always comes up front and center. Now, *why* is this dialog here? As far as I can see, it's here because on the System:Preferences:Power Management:General:Actions:When the Power Button is Pressed menu, I have chosen the option "Ask me". Thus, I've indicated that when I press the power button, I don't necessarily know whether I'd like to (say) reboot my machine or instead suspend it-- two *very* different actions with grave implications for everything going on on the machine. So, this dialog box is the UI carrying out my previously specified wishes. Except that this dialog box is unlike every dialog box we've ever seen in one important way: if the user doesn't choose an option in 60 seconds, the dialog box makes some choice for the user! This is a complete surprise! I've never seen anything like this in all of Unix- dom, nor on a Mac or Windows box, for that matter. >From a UI usability perspective, this behavior is simply outrageous. The user has chosen what he wants to happen, and the UI is then explicitly ignoring his wishes and doing something else that may very well cause work to be lost, etc. By itself, I think that that constitutes a major UI bug. Beyond that, as I mentioned above, this dialog often does not come up front and center, but is often born iconified for whatever reason, which just makes the situation that much worse. Also, I think I've also seen the time-out default behavior be "shutdown" or "hibernate" at different times, for no obvious reason (I might be mis-recalling this, though). I see this as a bug. If it needs to go on the wish list first, fine, but I'd really like to see this behavior changed. -- The "shut down the computer" dialog should not act on a timer https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/308823 You received this bug notification because you are a member of Ubuntu Bugs, which is subscribed to Ubuntu. -- ubuntu-bugs mailing list ubuntu-bugs@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-bugs
