3 ms·
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 what
by 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 agoI 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.