[openbeos-cdt] Re: Close window button

  • From: Ryan Leavengood <leavengood@xxxxxxxxx>
  • To: openbeos-cdt@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
  • Date: Tue, 10 Nov 2009 14:35:41 -0500

On Tue, Nov 10, 2009 at 1:36 PM, Humdinger <humdingerb@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>
> I'll stop posting on this topic. Obviously nobody reads what I write
> and I'm sick of repeating myself: Nobody mistakes the simple window-
> closing square for a checkbox. But you can't use a simple square just
> about anywhere else in the GUI and expect someone to guess what it
> does. So, you'll probably put an "X" into it like all the OSs. Having a
> subtle "X" mean "Close" everywhere could introduce consistency.

I get what you are saying. I myself have thought about the problem of
no standard "close" button in the Haiku interface. Of course Matt
Madia went so far as to use the window close box as the close button
in our Firefox skin for Bezilla. I think that works decently. And of
course for my browser I am wanting to try to use the window stacking
instead of tabs, so in that case the close button for each "tab" would
just be the one for the window decorator.

But at some point there will be a need for a close button on a GUI
somewhere, and without some standard to base it on each developer will
just make up their own, leading to inconsistency. So I definitely get
your argument there.

Now with all that said, I just really like the square close button. It
is just one of those pieces of BeOS that gives me a nice feeling
inside. Obviously that isn't exactly logical or good interface design,
but I think that still has some bearing on these sorts of decisions.
Based on Meanwhile's email, he feels similarly. I imagine we aren't
alone.

A reasonable compromise might be to leave the current window decorator
as it is, but define a close button that could be used by other
applications that fits in well with the rest of Haiku. Maybe some
variation of what Braden used for the window decorator in his
mock-ups.

-- 
Regards,
Ryan

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