Comment 12 for bug 38512

Ok, I've read other discussions on the gnome bug tracker. Not going to surrender :) Sorry for causing trouble here, but I really think I am seeing a mistake in gnome, and would like to see it corrected. So let me summarize the two most important points that have been overlooked, apart from personal preferences and impressions.

 Sebastian: you asked: "what is your issue with having the close button closing an application?". Issue is, I would prefer the close button to close a window, not an application. If usually, and for very good reasons, application and window coincide (and I know this is part of the HIG), the systray is exactly an exception. The systray is a mean to represent an "application" as a separate entity from the windows it created.

But, more important: current policy violates the HIG. You manipulate an object (the window) and end up deleting another object (the tray icon). The HIG principle I mention here has been considered so important in the history of gnome, that we can't have a damn "panel properties" menu entry, in the menu of panel items. I remember the discussion when I still used gnome 1.2 in debian potato. This leads to various usability problems, especially when you have a full panel and you can't open the context menu of your panel, but we had to accept these usability problems just because acting on an object should not act on other visible objects. Now I really don't see why you should violate this principle, and don't see what other principles would be violated by letting the close action on a window do what you asked for, which is, "close the window, please".