unity-design team mailing list archive

[Dylan McCall <dylanmccall@xxxxxxxxx>]

> What Windows does (XP/Vista/7/8 Consumer Preview) is immediately start
> shutting down after you choose that option. When I want my computer to shut
> down, I do not want my computer to try to negotiate something different
> (confirmation dialog), I just want it to shut down. I don't know how someone
> could accidentally choose the shutdown option when they did not want that to
> happen, and after all, before finally shutting down, Ubuntu waits until all
> applications can shut down (Libreoffice is one that displays a message
> asking if you want to save changes or not, which is very helpful), then
> shuts down. I do not think we need the confirmation window to open UNLESS
> there are applications running which require a further user interaction to
> close, like LibreOffice and Transmission, I know there are others too, which
> require user interaction in some cases. Thanks!!!
>
> ---Ryan

Windows also can't decide whether the Power button in its start menu
should sleep, hibernate or shut down… so I'm not sure that's the best
shutdown workflow to aspire to. Besides, Windows _does_ show a
confirmation when there are applications running (and XP always has
one), and I have lots and lots of circumstantial evidence to
demonstrate that the approach in Vista and upwards doesn't work very
well: I frequently see Windows PCs stuck at the "Are you sure you want
to close these programs?" step. People are used to not having a
shutdown confirmation, so they choose "Shutdown" and then leave, not
expecting a confirmation step.
I don't think it's at all sane to have an option that changes at
random like that.

Dylan