420688 - No "quit" keyboard shortcut such as Ctrl+Q [windows]

Status: RESOLVED WONTFIX

(Firefox :: Menus, defect)

Description

[Rimas Kudelis [use needinfo to ping]]

This is a clone of Bug 189290, but for Windows.

Now that Firefox warns the user about closing multiple windows, perhaps we could get Ctrl+Q on Windows, as well as on Linux?

Comment 1

[Myk Melez [:myk] [@mykmelez]]

Note: bug 189290 implements this for Linux.  For Windows, whose "Quit" menuitem is called "Exit", it's not clear what the right shortcut is.

Comment 2

[Rimas Kudelis [use needinfo to ping]]

(In reply to comment #1)
> Note: bug 189290 implements this for Linux.  For Windows, whose "Quit" menuitem
> is called "Exit", it's not clear what the right shortcut is.

Well, not all applications define this shortcut. I just checked MS Word 2003, and it doesn't. Software from Microsoft in general seems not to provide that shortcut. However, third party software that does (such as Adobe's products, OpenOffice, Opera, Thunderbird :)), employs Ctrl+Q for this purpose in most, if not all, cases. Perhaps the reason behind that is just the cross-platform nature of all this software, but anyway... I don't think adding a common shortcut, even if it's not mentioned in any HIG for Windows, would hurt.

Comment 3

[Mike Beltzner [:beltzner, not reading bugmail]]

The standard quit shortcut on windows is Alt+F4, is it not?

Comment 4

[:Gavin Sharp [email: [e-mail]]]

Alt+F4 is "close window", not quit.

Comment 5

[Myk Melez [:myk] [@mykmelez]]

(In reply to comment #4)
> Alt+F4 is "close window", not quit.

Alt-F4 is also an insidious alternative to a "quit" shortcut.  It's what I use in the absence of a "quit" shortcut, and it works fine when I only have one Firefox window open, but if I have two windows open, and I hit Alt-F4 twice to close them both, then session restore discards the contents of the first one, so when I reopen Firefox I only get back the second one.

I've lost a window full of tabs several times that way.

Comment 6

[Przemyslaw Bialik]

I'm using a few applications which use Alt+X (eXit) as a quit shortcut.
It's easy to use it when needed and contrary to Ctrl+Q there is rather smaller chance of hitting it by mistake (e.g. when Ctrl-Tabbing - Q is close to the Tab key).

Comment 7

[Dão Gottwald [:dao]]

Ctrl-Q is also used by IE for its "Quick Tabs", so some users might be surprised if that quits Firefox.

Comment 8

[Nathan Phillip Brink (binki)]

(In reply to comment #7)
> Ctrl-Q is also used by IE for its "Quick Tabs", so some users might be
> surprised if that quits Firefox.
CTRL-Q is the universally understood ``quit'' keystroke. Old versions of firefox used to have this and seamonkey still does. Openoffice, gimp, etc. (IIRC) support this keystroke.

If I used IE, I'd be surprised to have it not quitting for me when using ctrl+q just as I am annoyed that firefox requires ctrl+shift+w instead of ctrl+q. (Of course, I only encounter this bug when I don't have time/permission to install seamonkey ;-) ).

Comment 9

[Timvde]

I just tried: ctrl-shift-w seems to behave like Alt-F4 here: it closes current window. Alt-f + x would do the trick, but that would change according to the language.

If it's not implemented for platform consistency: imo that's only important for behaviour the user is used to. Features that are always included, like Alt-F4 of ctrl-F matter. Leaving out features that don't exist in another form, seems like madness to me. In this case, cross-platform application consistency is more important imo.

If there's a possibility of unwanted hits (but that wouldn't be a Windows only problem, I have never seen a Linux user complain about this) or people being surprised, it can be solved by
- Adding an option to turn it off
- Always asking for confirmation on quitting when using ctrl-q, whatever the settings are
- Adding a pop-up the first time the shortcut is pressed, stating "You have just pressed ctrl-q. This is a shortcut that will quit Firefox. Are you sure you want to continue?"

Comment 10

[:Gavin Sharp [email: [e-mail]]]

We're following the OS convention here.