feature request: esc key to close chat windows

[x1um1n]

Binary package hint: empathy

this should be a feature, for the following reasons:

1, it's intuitive, more so than ctrl+w at least
2, esc closes chat windows in most chat clients users would be familiar with, ie MSN, Pidgin etc
3, if you just want to get rid of the window, you want it to be as quick & easy as possible.. if there's some issue with using esc, how about ctrl+d?

[Brian Curtis (bcurtiswx)]

Thanks for your bug report and helping to make Ubuntu better. This is a wishlist item and should be forwarded to the upstream developers. This can be done using the instructions found at http://wiki.ubuntu.com/Bugs/Upstream/Gnome

[gcb (gcb0)]

4. it's the most requested pidgim/gaim feature over time, after msn video.
5. it's the most installed plugin in pidgim/gaim (pidgim-hotkeys ubuntu package).

[Omer Akram (om26er)]

reported it upstream plz make comments there https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=606560

[Omer Akram (om26er)]

upstream marked this a duplicate of an old and declined bug
https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=554845

[Vish (vish)]

Thank you for bringing this bug to our attention. However, a paper cut should be a small usability issue, in the default Ubuntu install, that affects many people and is quick and easy to fix. So this bug can't be addressed as part of this project.

- A feature request is not a papercut. Further Upstream has declined this change and does not want to duplicate pidgin.
For further information about papercuts criteria, please read https://wiki.ubuntu.com/PaperCut.

Don't worry though, this bug has been marked as "Invalid" only in the papercuts project.

[Vish (vish)]

Changing upstream bug. However it is marked wont fix...

Comment 15 seems pretty clear:
"As we already said, Empathy is a GNOME application and there is no GNOME
application closing tabs when pressing escape. Our goal is to offer a coherent
user experience integrated in the GNOME desktop; not to create a clone of
Pidgin or any other IM client."

[Sebastien Bacher (seb128)]

upstream said that's not a bug

[Michael (mstrelan)]

what's wrong with a checkbox "Esc to close windows"

[Leo (leorolla)]

This is not what Gnome wants:
Someone up there decided that Esc means "cancel", not "close window", and furthermore, that chat windows cannot have the concept of "cancel" associated to them (in contrast, "Save file as..." windows can be "canceled" via Esc key resulting in the window being *closed*).
I really does indicate that people who decide what means what, are not the same people who indeed do use instant messaging.

Honestly, just use pidgin, it's the best ever.

[David De Sousa (davidesousa)]

I just had that issue, you can modify /usr/share/empathy/empathy-chat-window.ui and change the line that says:
<accelerator key="W" modifiers="GDK_CONTROL_MASK"/>

to

<accelerator key="Escape" />

and ask for forgiveness to the gods that decided that would be a sin, cheers

[[e-mail] (odslabs)]

THANK YOU SO MUCH DAVID DE SOUSA!!!!!!!

[entonjackson (aj-mysc)]

+1 for David Se Sousa