Subject: Re: Fwd: This whole File->Close debate
From: Dom Lachowicz (dominicl@seas.upenn.edu)
Date: Thu Aug 30 2001 - 11:32:19 CDT
> Having followed this thread pretty closely, I don't believe there is
> anyone who would object to a choice or preference as to the operation of
> the close command. It would be nice if the default setting reflected
> the majority of the user preference and not the programmers preference.
> ;-)
For the record, this is what I suggested and what I implemented. The
overwhelming majority said that "the current behavior is wrong, we should do
things differently." So no we do things differently.
> As to the X button, alas, if you follow its function, it appears to be a
> surrogate for the close command. That is, it closes the open document,
> but does not exit if there are multiple documents open. This seems
> pretty consistent with the SDI model, where, as far as I can tell, only
> the exit command operates on all documents. I'm not sure why the user
> preference shouldn't follow here also. That way you get what you want
> and other users get what they want.
I did take this into effect. Perhaps I should rephrase:
"If you click the 'X' button with multiple windows open, it only closes that 1
window. If you click 'X' with only 1 window open, it closes the window and
exits abiword." I could *trivially* make Abi support this behavior easily (1
line of code, actually) but I think that 'X' in most peoples' minds means more
than just file->close. But if you want to open up a debate here, I said that I
was pretty firm on my opinion, but I could be persuaded. Please attempt
persuade me as you have not done so thus far.
> On a separate topic, I agree with you, that the discussion on this topic
> did get tedious a few times. However, flames were held to a minimum &
most of the discussion was on ideas. I might point out that if you go
> back & examine the credentials of the people discussing this, you will
> find that the project just got the benefit of 100's of years of direct
> user experience plus the input of trainers & managers who have dealt
> with 1000's of users of all varieties. In other words, Abiword was just
> the benefactor of what would amount to the thousands of dollars worth of
> market research in the commercial world. Thus, users are contributing
> to the project in a positive manner. At least, I hope the developers
> see it that way.
The few developers who are subscribed to this list (actually, abi only has a
few developers, but that's beside the point) honestly do appreciate your
feedback and input. But please remember that we too, in our day jobs, have
accumulated 100's of years of direct user experience plus the input of
trainers and managers who have dealt with 1000's of users of all varieties. In
many cases we are the trainers and managers and have credentials of our own.
My only complaint here was that the discussion tended to get long-winded and
filled up my mailbox. We all get hundreds of emails per day besides our
day-jobs. It's hard to pay attention to 50 new emails in a thread - especially
when each is 100 lines long (even though they may have fabulous, intelligent,
well-though-out content). The "me too" emails need to stop if they offer
nothing new to say. That's what votes in bugzilla are for. In the future,
conciseness and clarity are much appreciated.
You users and your feedback are *very* much appreciated. David, thank you for
asking people to vote on this and other issues. I would appreciate it if at
least some of you would go to bugzilla.abisource.com and point out other
things that nag you about Abi or features that you would like to see. Feel
free to vote on these bugs and other bugs (and also discuss them on this list,
should you feel that the bug merits discussion). Also, in the bug contents,
please post either:
1) Snippets of the actual discussions here on the mailing list inside of the
bug
2) A URL of a good description/argument of what you would like to see (could
be a link to a post in the abiword-users mailing-list archive)
Also, feel free to open up rival bugs (e.g. 1751,1909) and vote on them if you
feel the need to. At least 1 way will be implemented and both will get closed
thanks to your input.
Thanks,
Dom
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