1666638 - Minimize to tray should also minimize on Windows close control

Status: UNCONFIRMED

(Thunderbird :: General, enhancement)

Description

[Johannes]

User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64; rv:81.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/81.0

Steps to reproduce:

I welcome the addition of a native minimize to tray functionality to finally arrive in Thunderbird 78 for Windows. I have been using MinimizeToTray, MinTrayR and its variants for years and when they finally stopped working in Firefox 68, I went ahead and wrote a tool that hooks Thunderbird's window procedure to emulate the same behaviour without relying on an extension.

I thought that I can finally get rid of my tool now, but the new tray icon is not quite there yet: It really only works when minimizing, but not when closing. The main reason why I used those extension and later my own tool was not just to save space in the taskbar, but also to prevent a crucial piece of software that should basically always run in the background from being closed accidentally. Hence there was an option in those add-ons to not just minimize to tray, but to also intercept clicks on the [x] button and minimize to tray instead of closing the client completely.

Actual results:

Even with the new native Thunderbird tray icon, closing the main window closes Thunderbird altogether.

Expected results:

I would like an option to also minimize Thunderbird to the system tray when hitting the [x] Close button of the window. The user could still quit Thunderbird completely by using the File menu, or by an option added to the context menu of the tray icon (my custom tray icon had two entries, "Restore Thunderbird" and "Close Thunderbird" - I think MinimizeToTray had similar options).

Comment 1

[kg.schmidt94]

I also support the idea of Johannes to set the option to "close" Thunderbird to system tray, instead of only minimizing to system tray.
Pete

Comment 2

[selno meria]

Development team just ignores this and THAT's ALL. THEY JUST DON'T CARE THOUSANDS OF PEOPLE THAT HAVE BEEN SUFFERRING FOR YEARS and lacking that feature. THey have always known this fact very well, they just don't care and intentionally ignored the feature during years. It doesn't have explanation. It is the perfect example how the well-known softwares' dev.teams are actually ignorant to user requests.

Comment 3

[Johannes]

The fact that Thunderbird now has a native tray icon just proves the complete opposite of what you said. Please keep your insults out of my bug report report, thank you. Nobody will feel like helping you with your problem if you insult them. Thunderbird has a very small development team compared to the large number of users it has, it is completely understandable that they cannot implement each and every requested feature immediately. Just think how YOU would feel if you were the only developer of a software used by thousands of people and you would have to fulfil each person's wishes and they insulted you at the same time?

Comment 4

[selno meria]

Where you have read the insultion? I just critisized, and neither it's true what you said. it is not "every particular feature", instead really thousands of people's needs. However, if noting the dissatisfaction is insultion, then ok - I will delete my post from "your thread".

Comment 5

[Johannes]

If being called ignorant after actually implementing a long-wished feature isn't an insult, then I don't know what is. Either way, these comments are leading nowhere. your complaint that Thunderbird developers aren't listening to you isn't going to make them sympathize with you and leave them motivated to actually work on improving this feature. Just think about what you would feel reading this kind of comment if it was directed towards you.

Comment 6

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

similar to bug 1679702 ?

Comment 7

[Johannes]

I don't see the similarity. One is an option how to launch an application, this is about the window close button not being usable to minimize to tray. Fixing one won't fix the other.

For what it's worth, my TBTray tool (https://github.com/sagamusix/TBTray) has been rewritten to no longer provide its own tray icon. Instead, it uses Thunderbird's own tray icon and rewrite HTCLOSE / SC_CLOSE messages to SC_MINIMIZE.

Comment 8

[Aftermath]

I'm coming from github and I'm a bit confused. There's no like button here for the devs to prioritize this right? I also don't wanna spam the bug with (me too).

Comment 9

[Matt]

(In reply to Aftermath from comment #8)

I'm coming from github and I'm a bit confused. There's no like button here for the devs to prioritize this right? I also don't wanna spam the bug with (me too).

Up the top in the details there is a vote button. Fifth heading down from the top.

Comment 10

[Linus Kardell]

Also, the minimize button should still minimize. Enabling the tray icon shouldn't change the minimize button into closing the window like it does currently. And the tray icon should always be shown when enabled. It's really bizarre, the way they've currently implemented the tray icon, and inconsistent with nearly every tray application in existence.

Comment 11

[Johannes]

It's how all the previous community efforts to create a tray icon for Thunderbird worked (including my TBTray) and if that behaviour was up for debate, I'd at least want to keep it as an option. Yes, I want both minimizing and closing Thunderbird make it go to the tray, because that way it won't be taking any space in my task bar while I'm waiting for new mail to arrive.

Comment 12

[Frasier Crane]

Can you please finally, finally, finally, FINALLY, add "Close to system tray"??? It's extremely important on slower virtual machines where starting TB takes literally forever, so it must be kept in memory to be usable... Just using the minimize button (together with Minimize to tray") instead of close is not an option, because that's a different thing and often I just want to minimize the window and keep it on the taskbar.

So PLEASE add this extremely important feature! It needs to be independent of "Minimize to tray", because that's a different thing...

The extension "KeepRunning" somewhat works, but it leads to undesired side effects (like the main window hiding when replying to a mail, the "Write" window minimizing, etc.), so it's not really an option.

Thanks!

Comment 13

[Francesco]

And this add-on doesn't work? https://addons.thunderbird.net/en-US/thunderbird/addon/minimize-on-close/

Comment 14

[Frasier Crane]

No, because it can't be installed (it is not compatible with TB 132...)

Comment 15

[Francesco]

Download the XPI, rename to ZIP, edit the manifest.json inside, install the ZIP file. Worth a try.

Comment 16

[Frasier Crane]

Thanks - this seems to work! However it's still not optimal, because I need to enable "when minimized, move to the tray". This also trays the app when I just want to minimize it regularly... As I mentioned, "Close to Tray" and "Minimize to Tray" should be 2 separate things...

I still hope this will eventually be added to TB, because it's extremely easy to implement and extremely useful...

Comment 17

[Linus Kardell]

What I've been using as a workaround is Systray-X: https://github.com/Ximi1970/systray-x, which can be configured to handle the window control buttons properly. Though it does require you to install a companion app rather than just a regular extension, and (on Linux), it won't work with native Wayland or Flatpak.

Comment 18

[Lachcim]

Good news! "Close to tray" is now available as an extension, aptly named Close to Tray. It lets you minimize the window without moving it to the tray, too. You can get it from addons.thunderbird.net here or from the GitHub page here.