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List:       kde-look
Subject:    Re: quit/close was: User Interface Standards
From:       zander () microweb ! nl
Date:       1999-09-15 7:28:22
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> 
> > Application: An appl. can own one or more windows.
> Ok, but one window can also have more than one application behind
> (konqueror, KDE2.0,...).

I want to stress your own point, think like a user.
Therefore my statments that an application is the software that owns one or
more windows would be valid. Try to explain to the girlfriend that 
not one but two applications are running if you click on a jpg in 
konqueror

Think simple, read on!
> 
> > 
> > With this, close closes the document. Exit closes the application.
> Again the problem: for the user it's not visible how many applications
> there are. 

Exit closes all windows, therefor _all_ applications. The user would not 
expect that the jpeg view can be closed seperately! So don't. Let the 
application decide when to close the foreign application.

> > Unexplained:
<snip> 
It seems we agree on those points.

> > Solution:
> >     The 'X' of a window closes a window, if it is the last window to view a
> >      document, close document
> >     if it is the last document, close (exit) program.
> Try to explain this a beginner - it's to complicated. An X does the same
> as Quit.

hmm, it would seem to me that closing a window is not the same as closing a 
whole application with all it's windows and documents.

Looking at the software base I am used to (all platforms), for instance photoshop,
a document can be closed by closing it's window. Granted the look of the desktop
is so that this is intuitive, but I think it is the norm.

In a situation where I have kword, with 5 documents open, all different text files.
How dow I close one document. My computer-illiturate-neighbor answered: close that
window, pointing to the window. 

Any research on this?

> > 
> >     Close a document with the close statement, close all window's which view
> >     that document. But allways leave one window open, so the application doesn't
> >     quit. Leave it empty or open a clean document.
> Again I think this is to complicated and not predictable for the user:
> if you really offer a Close (=> the app. is able to have a "grey"
> window), then make all windows grey.

Now I think about it, you are right. Leave the windows blank. But I think that
when viewing a document with more then one window and that document is closed
the extra windows should _still_ be in multiview mode, where you open a document
and all other windows respond with the same document. This seems concise, and 
the audiance using multiview documents will appriciate this.


> 
> > 
> >     Close the application will close all windows, all documents.
> What is "the application" - the user only see's windows.

Which is the application. 

Using small utils, this may cause problems. So make it configurable. But using
gimp for instance, closing the application (in the button bar, file-> exit/quit) 
closes all the windows owned by the application. And all pictures opened by the
application.

To look at it from the other side, how do you close all windows/documents if you
opened a sjit-load of windows. 
You close the application which the belong to...

Right?


--
Thomas Zander                                                zander@microweb.nl
Today, it's understood that of course you'll use a computer,
because it makes other people's lives easier -- or, more         icq: 970 00 05
accurately, it enables them to maintain their manic pace.      gpg-key:  0588D5

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