Please make X button mean Quit in Gimp when a file is still open

[Wouter Stomp]

Binary package hint: gimp

In gimp 2.6, pressing the close button in the title bar only closes the current document when exactly one document is open, it does not close the application as expected. Instead it pops up a new so called "empty image window". This is completely inconsistent with all other applications.

ProblemType: Bug
Architecture: amd64
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 8.10
Package: gimp 2.6.0-1ubuntu1
ProcEnviron:
 PATH=/usr/local/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/sbin:/usr/bin:/sbin:/bin:/usr/games
 LANG=nl_NL.UTF-8
 SHELL=/bin/bash
SourcePackage: gimp
Uname: Linux 2.6.27-6-generic x86_64

[Mackenzie Morgan (maco.m)]

After you've closed all current documents, the close button doesn't work? Or do you mean that you expect Gimp to exit when you don't have an open document, even though you could still want to create a new one after closing the old ones? If that's the case, it'd be rather silly in the other direction, don't you think? If you wanted to create a new document, you would have to make sure you didn't close what you were done with first, because that'd mean waiting for Gimp to load back up again.

[Wouter Stomp (wouterstomp-deactivatedaccount)]

What I mean is that I expect it to close when you have exactly one image window open and you click on its title bar close button. A new window without a document open then appears. If you want to create a new document you can close the current file from the file menu. That is how all other applications (firefox, openoffice, etc.) work too.

[Mackenzie Morgan (maco.m)]

When a file is available to be closed, the X is File->Close. When File->Close is not available due to lack of a file to close, File->Quit is executed instead.

This was a design decision (see the release announcement: http://gimp.org/release-notes/gimp-2.6.html ) as part of Gimp's redesign, and it's not something Ubuntu devs are likely to deviate from upstream on. If you want to contribute to Gimp's redesign plans, I suggest you file a bug upstream on gimp.org or speak to the Gimp developers.

And Firefox doesn't close when the last tab is closed. It just has an open blank tab.

[Wouter Stomp (wouterstomp-deactivatedaccount)]

Mackenzie: in _every_ application I know, including firefox, the X in the upper right corner of the window, closes the application. It would be very inconsistent to have a different behaviour for one application. I think there is very good reason here, usability-wise, to deviate from this bad upstream decision.

You mention firefox: it provides a close button for a tab which closes the current document. Similarly openoffice has a "close this document" button at the end of the menu bar. Gimp could implement something like this if it wants to provide this functionality, but it should not completely change the functionality of a button that does the same in all applications desktop wide.

[Mackenzie Morgan (maco.m)]

I suggest you file this bug upstream. It would also be inconsistent for Gimp in Ubuntu to behave differently than Gimp-in-everything-else.

[Pedro Villavicencio (pedro)]

Wouter did you opened an upstream task for this bug? otherwise it makes no sense to leave it open here. thanks.

[Ted (tedks)]

This was marked Invalid in the GIMP upstream bug tracker, with this message from Michael Natterer:

"But this is exactly as specified. If you want to have this changed, please
propose and discuss it on the mailing list (as it should be done with
all enhancement requests)."

[Thomas Hotz (thotz-deactivatedaccount)]

I set the status from the upstream bug here, so closed.