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> When a user logged into a voice room closes the DISCORD application window by clicking on the "X" icon at the top right of the window in Microsoft Windows, th

by tl 4y ago

> When a user logged into a voice room closes the DISCORD application window by clicking on the "X" icon at the top right of the window in Microsoft Windows, they actually just put the application in the background and stay logged into the voice room. However, in Microsoft Windows, clicking on the "X" at the top right of the last visible application window will exit the application for the vast majority of applications. Interesting this is considered [Microsoft] Discord's fault and not Microsoft Windows. I quit Discord with Cmd-Q, does Alt-F4 not do the right thing on Windows? The only popular program I know evil enough to override Cmd-Q is Chrome, and I blame Apple for the failing.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
debugnik 4y ago
> does Alt-F4 not do the right thing on Windows It usually closes the active window, but Discord does close the entire application for some reason.
akersten 4y ago
Somehow I missed the part of the "very easy to understand and straightforward GDPR" that prohibits this. I've been saying all along that this regulation is dangerously boundless, but I can't wait for someone to justify to me why this actually makes total sense.
judge2020 4y ago
> The only popular program I know evil enough to override Cmd-Q is Chrome, and I blame Apple for the failing. TBF I've been saved a few times from losing all my browser state by accidentally hitting cmd-Q.
LoganDark 4y ago
On macOS, you can already close all windows without exiting an application, so Discord does not violate any established convention. (Clicking the red traffic-light close button does not usually close the entire app; Cmd+Q does.) On Windows, there is no concept of applications at all, only windows. Perhaps you can try to mess with processes, but there's not even any mechanism for activation of a process that would even allow it to begin to work in any way similar to macOS's model. So yes. Closing all windows, on Windows, is widely assumed to terminate the associated process. This is why apps like Thunderbird, for example, close entirely when you click the X, and only actually go to the system tray when you click minimize. Interestingly, with Discord on Windows, Alt+F4 completely closes the entire app. The close button is implemented by the webpage, however, and closes to the system tray instead of actually closing the window.
nokya 4y ago
"clicking on the "X" at the top right of the last visible application window will exit the application for the vast majority of applications." It used to be like you describe, but this is a disappearing rule. An increasing amount of companies build apps designed in a way that you need to have sysadmin skills to actually terminate the program for real. We can't expect Microsoft to require developers to implement this 'X' correctly because Microsoft itself is exploiting this loophole by keeping some of its apps alive when the user clicks the 'x' button. This is a common trend I already mentioned here several years ago initiated by GAFAM companies to subversively rewrite the signification of common concepts that they disagree with: - "no/decline" -> maybe later - "no/decline" -> skip for now - "no/decline" -> remind me later - "close" -> sleep" / run into background - "delete data" -> hide/hide temporarily - "delete account" -> deactivate (but keep everything) - "somebody" -> best friend - "buy/pay" -> rent - "configure" -> submit your preferences, we will take that into account etc. All these concepts are being actively stolen from the population and I am terribly saddened to see the vast majority of our regulators have absolutely no clue about the long-term consequences of this concepts being stolen/rewritten without tacit consent. So, yes, Discord rewrote the 'x' button but to be honest: who cares? Apparently only too few.
elAhmo 4y ago
Doesn't Skype have the same behaviour? Clicking "X" doesn't close the application.
- srj 4y ago
  Even AOL instant messenger did this. It would exit the window but still leave the application running with an icon in the systray area adjacent the clock.
- grumbel 4y ago
  Chat apps had that behavior since decades ago, ever since Windows95 got a systray. It's nothing new or special, it's kind of expected at this point. Though I think here is a failure of Microsoft to improve the UI and use different symbols for closing the app and suspending it into the systray. Either way, seems like a rather strict interpretation of 25.2. That said, I kind of welcome it. The principle of least surprise is something that should be much more strictly enforced and a lot of social apps make it way to easy to accidentally leak data into the public.
  - mmis1000 4y ago
    I would say close the window of chat app kill the ongoing chat session more surprising than not. The worst you should do is a prompt with yes/no and a checkbox to remember my decision when you do it the first time.
- mariopt 4y ago
  Yes and Slack does the same.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- 654wak654 4y ago
  Skype is the reason this behavior was popularized in VoIP apps. TeamSpeak and Mumble have a setting that allows this too, because people got used to Skype not shutting down after clicking "X".
inductive_magic 4y ago
>Interesting this is considered [Microsoft] Discord's fault and not Microsoft Windows. Probably because Discord implements the button, no? They configure what happens when you press "X", so their configuration is in violation, not the platform.
- dfxm12 4y ago
  But Windows misrepresents that the application is not running, when it is running in the background with access to the mic. Is this not a poor default? The justification here is that Discord behaves differently from "the vast majority of applications". First, I'm not sure if that's true. Second, another justification brought up is that Discord doesn't show the user that their mic is still hot, Windows seems just as culpable for not "protecting by default". For example, on my Android phone, whenever the mic/camera is in use, even if the app is in the background, the OS displays a green dot in the corner of the screen and when I poke it, it tells me what is using the mic/camera. This is a good default. I don't think Windows is culpable instead of Discord, but I do think that more protection should be built into Windows, and based on this decision, Windows could get dinged for this as much as Discord.
  - ChoGGi 4y ago
    I would say it shows an icon on the system tray, but I think recent versions of Windows like to hide unused icons for whatever reason. In my experience; quite a few programs will minimize to system tray when pressing x.
    - Pyramus 4y ago
      The issue highlighted in the article is no other VoiP/chat program will continue to record audio in the background. Which you can absolutely do, just don't make it the default behaviour. Valid point in my view.
      - lightedman 4y ago
        "The issue highlighted in the article is no other VoiP/chat program will continue to record audio in the background. " Just tested in a call with Skype. Closing the windows still has the program running, recording, and the call is still active. Ditto Camfrog. Ditto Paltalk. That's because most actual programs have a 'minimize to tray on closing' option enabled by default on install. It's been like this since 1998 or so. I've been undoing that option for at least 20 years, because when I click X I expect it to GTFO.
tpxl 4y ago
> does Alt-F4 not do the right thing on Windows Alt-F4 closes the _window_, not the application. If the application can 'survive' without a window, not exiting the application is the correct behaviour.
- debugnik 4y ago
  Except for Discord, which actually closes the entire application on Alt-F4 instead of just the window.
  - Semaphor 4y ago
    Huh. You are right. Alt+F4 closes the application, clicking the X closes the window. Kinda inconsistent.
    - LoganDark 4y ago
      Alt+F4 closes the window, clicking the X causes the window to hide, not close.
    - lightedman 4y ago
      Alt-F4 invokes different processes than the X button does. The X button is more akin to CTRL-F4.
      - debugnik 4y ago
        Nah, they both send WM_CLOSE to the window. The actual problem is that Discord uses its own non-native window frame and reimplements the X button differently than they handle the actual close event.
  - tpxl 4y ago
    Alt-F4 closes the window for me on Discord, not the app. There's a setting for that I suppose.
- ttyyzz 4y ago
  Alt+F4 kills the process.
Hamuko 4y ago
>I quit Discord with Cmd-Q, does Alt-F4 not do the right thing on Windows? I think the expectation of Windows users is that the X does in fact quit the application, so they don't reach for Alt-F4 the same way Mac users reach for Cmd-Q when they want to quit an application. Basing this on the common complaint of "Why does the application still stay in the Dock after I close it?" from Windows to Mac switchers.
- orbital-decay 4y ago
  Plenty of Windows applications continue running in background by default after pressing X. It's so widespread that I'd say it's the expected behavior for anything that has a tray icon (Discord does). Most apps that are designed to run in background behave like that by default - media players, torrent clients, sync and backup programs, communication apps, even VMs.
  - the_mitsuhiko 4y ago
    For applications with an open mic to disappear into the Tray Icon without any visual indicator in the UI that the mic is still open however is very uncommon.
  - Hamuko 4y ago
    Judging by the amount of garbage I usually see in the tray for "regular" Windows users, I'm not sure if they actually understand it.
vladvasiliu 4y ago
AFAIK ALT+F4 is the equivalent of clicking the close window button on Windows, or on macOS. It does not necessarily quit the application. Teams and Spotify, for example, by default don't quit. Many others have a "keep application running when window is closed".
- ttyyzz 4y ago
  And users hate it.
numlock86 4y ago
> When a user logged into a voice room closes the DISCORD application window by clicking on the "X" icon at the top right of the window in Microsoft Windows, they actually just put the application in the background and stay logged into the voice room. However, in Microsoft Windows, clicking on the "X" at the top right of the last visible application window will exit the application for the vast majority of applications. So just the same as Microsoft Teams or the vast majority of nowadays applications.
- simiones 4y ago
  Importantly, Teams will leave a meeting if you exit the Meeting window. Keeping the meeting going in the background is honestly pretty crazy.
  - rtpg 4y ago
    I think in the Discord model it makes more sense because it's based off of how online gamers flow (basically open a voice chat and stay on there for hours on end).
    - simiones 4y ago
      It's still outside the norm on Windows I would say, even though I understand why they did it.
      - mmis1000 4y ago
        Gamers obviously don't talk only when they open discord. They talks in 'game' with discord minimized. It would be dumb if hide discord to background while keep chatting is a manual action by default. But that behaviour can be changed. You can ask discord to exit the app when you click x if you prefer. There is an option for it. And about teams... who the heck want to be kept in a meeting if they are already ready to close the app? They are just different mindset.
  - lyu07282 4y ago
    Its by-design, so you can voice with people while playing multiplayer games.
mrtksn 4y ago
I like the CMD+Q Chrome implementation on macOS and would like to see it everywhere, essentially acts as a confirmation since it will quit if you press again or your do a long press. See, Apple put @ on Q on some languages[0] and you are required to press OPTION+Q to type @ and quite often you end up closing the app when you are trying to type an e-mail address. It's particularly annoying in browsers when you accidentally close the browser when you are about to complete a long form. I've overwritten the CMD-Q for Safari due to this particular reason. [0] https://i.imgur.com/bx6XsIh.png https://i.imgur.com/bx6XsIh.png
- tl 4y ago
  That is a regretable choice on Apple's part. First, on the US layout as least, there's a series of standard overrides dating back decades. OPT+Q is the rarely used œ (@ is SHIFT+2 on most US layouts), but some are helpful like ® (R), π (P), etc... Second, some apps bind OPT+KEY to commands!
  - benniomars 4y ago
    Nope. It's a country/language choice. Not an Apple choice.
- benniomars 4y ago
  The @ on Q is a keyboard layout standard adopted my some languages. At least it's not Apple's design decision. I'm Icelandic and a programmer. I work with US Ansi layout keyboards. Working with Icelandic ISO layout is horrible when programming. All the "programming" keys are strewn all over the keyboard and hidden under the option layer. I think they did this to make space for the special letters in the Icelandic language. On the other hand in the US Ansi layout the "programming" keys are close to the home row. Couple of examples, but you can find more if you want to: {} is easily accessible on the US Ansi, but Icelandic ISO it's under option+7 and option+0. ; is right under your pinky on the home row on the US Ansi, but shift+, on the Icelandic ISO layout. The @ is also on Q on the Icelandic keyboards. Which is absolutely insane, because quitting applications in macOS you do cmd+Q and on windows I think it is ctrl+Q. On windows you have to do alt-gr+Q to get the @ symbol. But on macOS you can do both option+Q or option+2. I use the option+2. I'm not pressing that Q with a modifier combo, unless I intend on quitting something.
ttyyzz 4y ago
> does Alt-F4 not do the right thing on Windows? Alt+F4 does close the application, "X-ing" it however puts it into the system tray and it remains active, which bothered me from the first day i've been using it.
- simiones 4y ago
  Not sure about Discord, but this would be extremely weird behavior. The extremely clear convention on Windows is that Alt+F4 closes the currently focused window, not more, no less. Whether closing the current window should close the application or not depends on many things, but having different behavior between Alt+F4 and the window close button would be very strange.
mrpotato 4y ago
Yes, Alt+F4 does close the application (no more process). Clicking on the X closes the window and moves the icon to the system tray, effectively hiding the icon and making the icon on the task bar disappear (or if pinned seem like the application isn't running). Anecdotally, I rarely use alt+f4 to close a window.
- orphea 4y ago
  > Alt+F4 does close the application (no more process) Alt+F4 never closed the application. Alt+F4 closes the window. That said, _some_ applications do close when their primary window is closed.
- simiones 4y ago
  Not sure about Discord, but for Teams and Slack, there is no difference between clicking the X button, hitting Alt+F4, or accessing the Window menu (hard to do) and selecting Close from there; which is not surprising, as Alt+F4 is the shortcut for the Close action, which is the equivalent of the X button by convention.
  - debugnik 4y ago
    Discord does close the entire application on Alt-F4 instead of just the window, it's quite weird.
xnorswap 4y ago
It's hard to blame apple or blame microsoft for simply having a different convention, which they've long had, I remember struggling to use an iMac back in the day because nothing ever quit when I wanted it to, but I accept that their model is different. In Windows it's convention for the top right X to be "Quit Application" and equivalent to alt+f4. It can be useful to have X close to system tray, in which case they can be configured to act that way on an opt-in basis. I'd still expect an active call to close however, unless a very specific single-purpose thing like mumble. (Which still has "close to tray" opt-in iirc ). The wider frustrating point is the erosion of the desktop as a whole and the abandonment of native desktop toolkits means it's a total crap-shoot now how something will behave by default, not just on this issue but a whole range of them.
- simiones 4y ago
  The convention on Windows has always been that Alt+F4 or the X button (or the Close action in the Window Menu) will close the currently focused window (this even works for dialog boxes in Win32 apps!). There is also a softer convention that apps exit when their main/last window is closed, but this has never been a strong convention, and Chat apps in particular have been exiting/minimizing to systray when their windows are closed for decades at this point. However, keeping an active voice session open with no window open is definitely outside the norm - most apps with audio chat that I know have to audio chat strictly tied to a window.
- smileybarry 4y ago
  > In Windows it's convention for the top right X to be "Quit Application" and equivalent to alt+f4. Depends on the app. Some apps, specifically communication, have a convention of: "_" minimizes to taskbar, "X" minimizes to tray. The latter is used constantly because I don't want Discord sitting in my taskbar half the day, but I want to stay online (and sometimes in a voice chat with friends). On that note, I find this point completely ridiculous given that: (A) Discord notifies you the first time you "X" it that it minimized, and (B) IM apps dating back to MSN Messenger in 2003 would do this.
sschueller 4y ago
Why do apps think it is necessary to start playing with the UI when we have a minimise button? When I click "X" I expect the application to exit as it did in Windows 1.0 and the minimise button to either put it in the startbar or the status bar but keep running. EDIT: I remembered incorrectly, Windows 1.0 did not have a X button but a close button on the right side of the window.
- kuramitropolis 4y ago
  In Windows 1.0 there was no X button.
- iso1631 4y ago
  > When I click "X" I expect the application to exit as it did in Windows 1.0 X didn't appear until Windows 95.
- grumbel 4y ago
  Minimize keeps cluttering up the taskbar. That's why all persistent-background apps go into the systray, be it chat apps, mouse drivers, graphics driver or whatever. You don't want them to fill up your taskbar for no reason. This has been common practice since the Windows95 days. Windows could handle this a bit better (e.g. different symbol than "X"), but there is nothing wrong with the behavior itself. A clear icon to indicate that the mic is in use wouldn't hurt either. This is a case of lackluster UI that everybody got used to over the years and never fixed, not some kind of evil dark pattern thing.
  - ryandrake 4y ago
    I think people are just arguing that this is a terrible practice. Instead of having a clogged up taskbar, you have a clogged up tray. In hindsight, Microsoft should have somehow added a better UI affordance back in the 90s, to disincentives this abuse. Mac has its own share of applications going against the OS convention. There are quite a few third party Mac applications that annoyingly force the process to exit when the user closes the main window. There are Mac apps that are also starting to intercept ⌘Q and not exiting the process or, infuriatingly, making you hold the key down in order to actually exit (I'm looking at you, Chrome). I wish product designers would please just stop thinking their app is uniquely special, second guessing OS conventions.

by tl 4y ago

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

debugnik 4y ago

> does Alt-F4 not do the right thing on Windows It usually closes the active window, but Discord does close the entire application for some reason.

akersten 4y ago

Somehow I missed the part of the "very easy to understand and straightforward GDPR" that prohibits this. I've been saying all along that this regulation is dangerously boundless, but I can't wait for someone to justify to me why this actually makes total sense.

judge2020 4y ago

> The only popular program I know evil enough to override Cmd-Q is Chrome, and I blame Apple for the failing. TBF I've been saved a few times from losing all my browser state by accidentally hitting cmd-Q.

LoganDark 4y ago

On macOS, you can already close all windows without exiting an application, so Discord does not violate any established convention. (Clicking the red traffic-light close button does not usually close the entire app; Cmd+Q does.) On Windows, there is no concept of applications at all, only windows. Perhaps you can try to mess with processes, but there's not even any mechanism for activation of a process that would even allow it to begin to work in any way similar to macOS's model. So yes. Closing all windows, on Windows, is widely assumed to terminate the associated process. This is why apps like Thunderbird, for example, close entirely when you click the X, and only actually go to the system tray when you click minimize. Interestingly, with Discord on Windows, Alt+F4 completely closes the entire app. The close button is implemented by the webpage, however, and closes to the system tray instead of actually closing the window.

nokya 4y ago

"clicking on the "X" at the top right of the last visible application window will exit the application for the vast majority of applications." It used to be like you describe, but this is a disappearing rule. An increasing amount of companies build apps designed in a way that you need to have sysadmin skills to actually terminate the program for real. We can't expect Microsoft to require developers to implement this 'X' correctly because Microsoft itself is exploiting this loophole by keeping some of its apps alive when the user clicks the 'x' button. This is a common trend I already mentioned here several years ago initiated by GAFAM companies to subversively rewrite the signification of common concepts that they disagree with: - "no/decline" -> maybe later - "no/decline" -> skip for now - "no/decline" -> remind me later - "close" -> sleep" / run into background - "delete data" -> hide/hide temporarily - "delete account" -> deactivate (but keep everything) - "somebody" -> best friend - "buy/pay" -> rent - "configure" -> submit your preferences, we will take that into account etc. All these concepts are being actively stolen from the population and I am terribly saddened to see the vast majority of our regulators have absolutely no clue about the long-term consequences of this concepts being stolen/rewritten without tacit consent. So, yes, Discord rewrote the 'x' button but to be honest: who cares? Apparently only too few.

elAhmo 4y ago

Doesn't Skype have the same behaviour? Clicking "X" doesn't close the application.

srj 4y ago
Even AOL instant messenger did this. It would exit the window but still leave the application running with an icon in the systray area adjacent the clock.
grumbel 4y ago
Chat apps had that behavior since decades ago, ever since Windows95 got a systray. It's nothing new or special, it's kind of expected at this point. Though I think here is a failure of Microsoft to improve the UI and use different symbols for closing the app and suspending it into the systray. Either way, seems like a rather strict interpretation of 25.2. That said, I kind of welcome it. The principle of least surprise is something that should be much more strictly enforced and a lot of social apps make it way to easy to accidentally leak data into the public.
- mmis1000 4y ago
  I would say close the window of chat app kill the ongoing chat session more surprising than not. The worst you should do is a prompt with yes/no and a checkbox to remember my decision when you do it the first time.
mariopt 4y ago
Yes and Slack does the same.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
654wak654 4y ago
Skype is the reason this behavior was popularized in VoIP apps. TeamSpeak and Mumble have a setting that allows this too, because people got used to Skype not shutting down after clicking "X".

inductive_magic 4y ago

>Interesting this is considered [Microsoft] Discord's fault and not Microsoft Windows. Probably because Discord implements the button, no? They configure what happens when you press "X", so their configuration is in violation, not the platform.

dfxm12 4y ago
But Windows misrepresents that the application is not running, when it is running in the background with access to the mic. Is this not a poor default? The justification here is that Discord behaves differently from "the vast majority of applications". First, I'm not sure if that's true. Second, another justification brought up is that Discord doesn't show the user that their mic is still hot, Windows seems just as culpable for not "protecting by default". For example, on my Android phone, whenever the mic/camera is in use, even if the app is in the background, the OS displays a green dot in the corner of the screen and when I poke it, it tells me what is using the mic/camera. This is a good default. I don't think Windows is culpable instead of Discord, but I do think that more protection should be built into Windows, and based on this decision, Windows could get dinged for this as much as Discord.
- ChoGGi 4y ago
  I would say it shows an icon on the system tray, but I think recent versions of Windows like to hide unused icons for whatever reason. In my experience; quite a few programs will minimize to system tray when pressing x.
  - Pyramus 4y ago
    The issue highlighted in the article is no other VoiP/chat program will continue to record audio in the background. Which you can absolutely do, just don't make it the default behaviour. Valid point in my view.
    - lightedman 4y ago
      "The issue highlighted in the article is no other VoiP/chat program will continue to record audio in the background. " Just tested in a call with Skype. Closing the windows still has the program running, recording, and the call is still active. Ditto Camfrog. Ditto Paltalk. That's because most actual programs have a 'minimize to tray on closing' option enabled by default on install. It's been like this since 1998 or so. I've been undoing that option for at least 20 years, because when I click X I expect it to GTFO.

tpxl 4y ago

> does Alt-F4 not do the right thing on Windows Alt-F4 closes the _window_, not the application. If the application can 'survive' without a window, not exiting the application is the correct behaviour.

debugnik 4y ago
Except for Discord, which actually closes the entire application on Alt-F4 instead of just the window.
- Semaphor 4y ago
  Huh. You are right. Alt+F4 closes the application, clicking the X closes the window. Kinda inconsistent.
  - LoganDark 4y ago
    Alt+F4 closes the window, clicking the X causes the window to hide, not close.
  - lightedman 4y ago
    Alt-F4 invokes different processes than the X button does. The X button is more akin to CTRL-F4.
    - debugnik 4y ago
      Nah, they both send WM_CLOSE to the window. The actual problem is that Discord uses its own non-native window frame and reimplements the X button differently than they handle the actual close event.
- tpxl 4y ago
  Alt-F4 closes the window for me on Discord, not the app. There's a setting for that I suppose.
ttyyzz 4y ago
Alt+F4 kills the process.

Hamuko 4y ago

>I quit Discord with Cmd-Q, does Alt-F4 not do the right thing on Windows? I think the expectation of Windows users is that the X does in fact quit the application, so they don't reach for Alt-F4 the same way Mac users reach for Cmd-Q when they want to quit an application. Basing this on the common complaint of "Why does the application still stay in the Dock after I close it?" from Windows to Mac switchers.

orbital-decay 4y ago
Plenty of Windows applications continue running in background by default after pressing X. It's so widespread that I'd say it's the expected behavior for anything that has a tray icon (Discord does). Most apps that are designed to run in background behave like that by default - media players, torrent clients, sync and backup programs, communication apps, even VMs.
- the_mitsuhiko 4y ago
  For applications with an open mic to disappear into the Tray Icon without any visual indicator in the UI that the mic is still open however is very uncommon.
- Hamuko 4y ago
  Judging by the amount of garbage I usually see in the tray for "regular" Windows users, I'm not sure if they actually understand it.

vladvasiliu 4y ago

AFAIK ALT+F4 is the equivalent of clicking the close window button on Windows, or on macOS. It does not necessarily quit the application. Teams and Spotify, for example, by default don't quit. Many others have a "keep application running when window is closed".

ttyyzz 4y ago
And users hate it.

numlock86 4y ago

> When a user logged into a voice room closes the DISCORD application window by clicking on the "X" icon at the top right of the window in Microsoft Windows, they actually just put the application in the background and stay logged into the voice room. However, in Microsoft Windows, clicking on the "X" at the top right of the last visible application window will exit the application for the vast majority of applications. So just the same as Microsoft Teams or the vast majority of nowadays applications.

simiones 4y ago
Importantly, Teams will leave a meeting if you exit the Meeting window. Keeping the meeting going in the background is honestly pretty crazy.
- rtpg 4y ago
  I think in the Discord model it makes more sense because it's based off of how online gamers flow (basically open a voice chat and stay on there for hours on end).
  - simiones 4y ago
    It's still outside the norm on Windows I would say, even though I understand why they did it.
    - mmis1000 4y ago
      Gamers obviously don't talk only when they open discord. They talks in 'game' with discord minimized. It would be dumb if hide discord to background while keep chatting is a manual action by default. But that behaviour can be changed. You can ask discord to exit the app when you click x if you prefer. There is an option for it. And about teams... who the heck want to be kept in a meeting if they are already ready to close the app? They are just different mindset.
- lyu07282 4y ago
  Its by-design, so you can voice with people while playing multiplayer games.

mrtksn 4y ago

I like the CMD+Q Chrome implementation on macOS and would like to see it everywhere, essentially acts as a confirmation since it will quit if you press again or your do a long press. See, Apple put @ on Q on some languages[0] and you are required to press OPTION+Q to type @ and quite often you end up closing the app when you are trying to type an e-mail address. It's particularly annoying in browsers when you accidentally close the browser when you are about to complete a long form. I've overwritten the CMD-Q for Safari due to this particular reason. [0] https://i.imgur.com/bx6XsIh.png https://i.imgur.com/bx6XsIh.png

tl 4y ago
That is a regretable choice on Apple's part. First, on the US layout as least, there's a series of standard overrides dating back decades. OPT+Q is the rarely used œ (@ is SHIFT+2 on most US layouts), but some are helpful like ® (R), π (P), etc... Second, some apps bind OPT+KEY to commands!
- benniomars 4y ago
  Nope. It's a country/language choice. Not an Apple choice.
benniomars 4y ago
The @ on Q is a keyboard layout standard adopted my some languages. At least it's not Apple's design decision. I'm Icelandic and a programmer. I work with US Ansi layout keyboards. Working with Icelandic ISO layout is horrible when programming. All the "programming" keys are strewn all over the keyboard and hidden under the option layer. I think they did this to make space for the special letters in the Icelandic language. On the other hand in the US Ansi layout the "programming" keys are close to the home row. Couple of examples, but you can find more if you want to: {} is easily accessible on the US Ansi, but Icelandic ISO it's under option+7 and option+0. ; is right under your pinky on the home row on the US Ansi, but shift+, on the Icelandic ISO layout. The @ is also on Q on the Icelandic keyboards. Which is absolutely insane, because quitting applications in macOS you do cmd+Q and on windows I think it is ctrl+Q. On windows you have to do alt-gr+Q to get the @ symbol. But on macOS you can do both option+Q or option+2. I use the option+2. I'm not pressing that Q with a modifier combo, unless I intend on quitting something.

ttyyzz 4y ago

> does Alt-F4 not do the right thing on Windows? Alt+F4 does close the application, "X-ing" it however puts it into the system tray and it remains active, which bothered me from the first day i've been using it.

simiones 4y ago
Not sure about Discord, but this would be extremely weird behavior. The extremely clear convention on Windows is that Alt+F4 closes the currently focused window, not more, no less. Whether closing the current window should close the application or not depends on many things, but having different behavior between Alt+F4 and the window close button would be very strange.

mrpotato 4y ago

Yes, Alt+F4 does close the application (no more process). Clicking on the X closes the window and moves the icon to the system tray, effectively hiding the icon and making the icon on the task bar disappear (or if pinned seem like the application isn't running). Anecdotally, I rarely use alt+f4 to close a window.

orphea 4y ago
> Alt+F4 does close the application (no more process) Alt+F4 never closed the application. Alt+F4 closes the window. That said, _some_ applications do close when their primary window is closed.
simiones 4y ago
Not sure about Discord, but for Teams and Slack, there is no difference between clicking the X button, hitting Alt+F4, or accessing the Window menu (hard to do) and selecting Close from there; which is not surprising, as Alt+F4 is the shortcut for the Close action, which is the equivalent of the X button by convention.
- debugnik 4y ago
  Discord does close the entire application on Alt-F4 instead of just the window, it's quite weird.

xnorswap 4y ago

It's hard to blame apple or blame microsoft for simply having a different convention, which they've long had, I remember struggling to use an iMac back in the day because nothing ever quit when I wanted it to, but I accept that their model is different. In Windows it's convention for the top right X to be "Quit Application" and equivalent to alt+f4. It can be useful to have X close to system tray, in which case they can be configured to act that way on an opt-in basis. I'd still expect an active call to close however, unless a very specific single-purpose thing like mumble. (Which still has "close to tray" opt-in iirc ). The wider frustrating point is the erosion of the desktop as a whole and the abandonment of native desktop toolkits means it's a total crap-shoot now how something will behave by default, not just on this issue but a whole range of them.

simiones 4y ago
The convention on Windows has always been that Alt+F4 or the X button (or the Close action in the Window Menu) will close the currently focused window (this even works for dialog boxes in Win32 apps!). There is also a softer convention that apps exit when their main/last window is closed, but this has never been a strong convention, and Chat apps in particular have been exiting/minimizing to systray when their windows are closed for decades at this point. However, keeping an active voice session open with no window open is definitely outside the norm - most apps with audio chat that I know have to audio chat strictly tied to a window.
smileybarry 4y ago
> In Windows it's convention for the top right X to be "Quit Application" and equivalent to alt+f4. Depends on the app. Some apps, specifically communication, have a convention of: "_" minimizes to taskbar, "X" minimizes to tray. The latter is used constantly because I don't want Discord sitting in my taskbar half the day, but I want to stay online (and sometimes in a voice chat with friends). On that note, I find this point completely ridiculous given that: (A) Discord notifies you the first time you "X" it that it minimized, and (B) IM apps dating back to MSN Messenger in 2003 would do this.

sschueller 4y ago

Why do apps think it is necessary to start playing with the UI when we have a minimise button? When I click "X" I expect the application to exit as it did in Windows 1.0 and the minimise button to either put it in the startbar or the status bar but keep running. EDIT: I remembered incorrectly, Windows 1.0 did not have a X button but a close button on the right side of the window.

kuramitropolis 4y ago
In Windows 1.0 there was no X button.
iso1631 4y ago
> When I click "X" I expect the application to exit as it did in Windows 1.0 X didn't appear until Windows 95.
grumbel 4y ago
Minimize keeps cluttering up the taskbar. That's why all persistent-background apps go into the systray, be it chat apps, mouse drivers, graphics driver or whatever. You don't want them to fill up your taskbar for no reason. This has been common practice since the Windows95 days. Windows could handle this a bit better (e.g. different symbol than "X"), but there is nothing wrong with the behavior itself. A clear icon to indicate that the mic is in use wouldn't hurt either. This is a case of lackluster UI that everybody got used to over the years and never fixed, not some kind of evil dark pattern thing.
- ryandrake 4y ago
  I think people are just arguing that this is a terrible practice. Instead of having a clogged up taskbar, you have a clogged up tray. In hindsight, Microsoft should have somehow added a better UI affordance back in the 90s, to disincentives this abuse. Mac has its own share of applications going against the OS convention. There are quite a few third party Mac applications that annoyingly force the process to exit when the user closes the main window. There are Mac apps that are also starting to intercept ⌘Q and not exiting the process or, infuriatingly, making you hold the key down in order to actually exit (I'm looking at you, Chrome). I wish product designers would please just stop thinking their app is uniquely special, second guessing OS conventions.