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List:       kde-usability
Subject:    Re: Delete, move and merge kedit, kate and kwrite
From:       Datschge <datschge () gmx ! net>
Date:       2003-02-21 20:01:49
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> You close a document because you have previously opened it. Those two
> actions are each other counterparts.

To be picky: They are only counterparts when the user opens the documents 
within the program. When the program is started with a document you'd 
logically not close the document but the window. When you or the program 
created a new document it also not necessarily clear that Close is its 
counterpart.

But let's not discuss about that anymore. I think making the purpose of Close 
and Quit apparent to the end user is what we need to do first regarding this 
topic.

> You don't "quit the window", "you quit the application".

...this is where the confusion usually starts, yes...

> But there is (or at least was) widespread confusion what an application
> instance is. Developers tend to think that everything that runs in the same
> process is the same application. Users on the other hand only see the visual
> representation of an application by means of its mainwindow and its taskbar
> entry. So when a user "quits the application" he expects the window and the
> taskbar entry to go away (and all windows that "belong" to it). If there is
> a second instance of that application running he doesn't expect that to
> disappear as well. E.g. when you start an application twice, you expect that
> you need to quit it twice as well. However, in KDE you can start an
> application twice but it can very well be that both instances of this
> application are handled by the same process since that is more resource
> friendly. But that is strictly an implementation decission that should be
> largely irrelevant for the user. The behaviour should still be that quiting
> one instance of the application closes this particular instance and not the
> other one, even if they are running in the same process.

I fully agree.

> To make developers aware of this it helps when you explain that "quiting" 
> means closing the window, because it gets usually implemented by means of 
> KMainWindow::close(), while there is also KApplication::quit() which in this 
> case would quit all instances of the application.
>
> This is also explained in the style guide.

So as conclusion: KApplication::quit() is pratically deprecated since it 
should be up to the user when all windows are closed (ie. only when he 
actually closes them all manually).

This is the ideal case and I fully agree that this is a Good Thing.

So the Close and Quit problem boils down to a linguistical problem: A clueless 
user who uses KDE for the first time but used other systems before will 
relate Close to "close the window" and Quit to "quit the program". This is 
not the case in KDE though, so I suggest replacing "Close" and "Quit" with 
short descriptions of their actual purpose, eg. "Close" = "Close Document" 
and "Quit" = "Close Window". Is there a problem with that solution?

Cheers back,
Datschge

-- 
KDE 3.0 was  the  breakthrough  in technology
KDE 3.1 was  the  breakthrough  in  eye candy
KDE 3.2 will be the breakthrough in usability
------------- let's have fun =) -------------
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