Close action inconsistent with legacy MDI applications

[Alex]

When clicking 'close' with only a single inkscape window open, the application exits. For consistency with other applications e.g. openoffice it may be better to simply close the current canvas but keep the application running.

With a single inkscape winodow, close and quit perform the same action.

[Jon A. Cruz (jon-joncruz)]

That's not quite a complete description.

The behavior you are asking for is when "selecting the 'close' menu item" or when clicking the 'close document' button. The left-over window you see is more from the MDI window management that even Microsoft officially deprecated with the introduction of Windows 95. OpenOffice.org seems to have kept this behavior to be compatible with outdated Windows 3.1 behavior. Note that if you click the 'close' on the window, the app does exit.

Do you have an example from programs that aren't legacy from Windows 3.1 lineage? Even MS Word has moved more to the "working on a document" rather than "working inside of an application" interface.

[Marcin Floryan (mfloryan)]

I suppose this is more to do with the ability to have the application window open while there is no document open. Currently Inkscape requires an open document and this is probably a sensible solution.
In recent versions of Word/Excel there is still a way to have the application open but no documents open.

[Alex (ajc508)]

As Marcin says, I was meaning more that once the final canvas is closed the
application quits. Many applications, for example coreldraw, autocad and
the gimp, support having the application remaining open even without a
document open.

The only reason I mention it, is I often finish with one drawing and want
to start a new canvas later. To do so I select ctrl+N and then have to
switch back to the old window to close, while in other applications I would
select close and then leave the application running until I need to use it
again, when I then select new window. It seems unecessary to have to have a
drawing open while it's not being used (especially on underpowered
machines), but also to have to wait for the software to restart from
scratch if exited fully.

I agree it's not a big problem, but that was my reasoning.

Thanks !
Alex

[ScislaC (scislac)]

It is incredibly common for graphics apps to remain open when no document is open, I agree that it is expected behavior. Additionally, GIMP has definitely reinforced this workflow with 2.6.

If we have no plans to change this, perhaps "Close" in the File menu should be grayed out when only one document or view is open.

[Upul Amarasinghe (tenuka)]

most people who work on low end machines like to close their working document before they start a new document. Closing the appliction on pressing close or Ctrl-W button is not very practical.

Usally loading an application consumes more time. So why not keep the application open so it will save time. If anyone wish to close the application can use Quit button within a fraction of a second.

[su_v (suv-lp)]

Duplicate of bug #170550 “open blank document on 'close'”?

[Jamie N (jamie-pvco)]

This is the only app I use that doesn't allow the app to run without an open file. This needs to be fixed, it is a pain to have to restart the program when you just want to close the last document and start a new one.

If it is in the file menu, it should affect a file, not the whole application. The quit button is for closing the app.