460575 - Please offer a way to disable Ctrl+W (Close window)

Status: RESOLVED DUPLICATE of bug 48333

(Firefox :: Settings UI, defect)

Description

[verdy_p]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 6.0; fr; rv:1.9.0.3) Gecko/2008092417 Firefox/3.0.3
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 6.0; fr; rv:1.9.0.3) Gecko/2008092417 Firefox/3.0.3

Consider that this keyboard shortcut is too dangerous when you are just editing a complex input form (sometimes for several hours of work): it closes the current window, terminatnig Firefox including the sessions, and cleaning up the cache. This means that all ongoing work is immediately lost and non recoverable (all you can do is to restore the window  but the content of the online web form data will not be restored as this will create a new session.

Consider (for example) someone editing a complex page for Wikipedia and patiently building it for an hour or two, clicking Preview many times and correcting it until he achieves what he wanted. Now just before saving the edit, he wants to select all and cut/copy the content of the form to preserve it in an external editor, where he will check other things, such as checking some syntax, using a spell-checker: Ctrl+A (for select all), Ctrl+X (cut), then Alt+Tab (to swithc to the other editor)...

Well, in practice this is quite easy, and for someone that types fast, using a mouse for performing those operations is a non-option (the mouse is much less precise and too slow compared to the keyboard). but if you are using Cltr+X or Ctrl+C to preserve the content of a web input form that you are editing, and considering that editing a document online means that precious time and intelligence is given to achieve it, it is now wompletely stupid that ANY webbrowser (Firefox, IE, Safari, Chrome) considers that it is safe for it to close immediately the ongoing session by a simple keystroke that is SO SIMILAR to normal edit actions.

Why disabling Ctrl+W ?
- Ctrl+W to close a window is not essential: you can do the safe using Alt+F4 (or a click in the UI close button) that is much less risky for your ongoing session; Alt+F4 is as fast as Ctrl+W for actively closing many windows.
- Ctrl+W appears very next to Ctrl+X/C/V commands that are frequently used when editing a web form. This is especially true for the French keyboard and the Dvorak keyboard !
- Many users, not just me, have complained to all web browser makers that this stupid Ctrl+W shortcut had made them loss a considerable time of work. Ctrl+W is effectively typed by accident, just because it is just a few millimiters from another frequent edit shortcut.
- I would be ready to adopt immediately the first browser that will allow disabling Ctrl+W completely.

Microsoft has refused to remove it because of the compatility with the Mac. Microsoft rejected users demand (and their multiple votes for it!) when he was evaluating all its beta of IE7.

Now that yuo are preparing Firefox 3.1, don't be as stupid as Microsoft: please make Ctrl+W a no-op key. Or allow it to be changed for doing something MUCH LESS dangerous than closing the window, i.e. somthing that can be undone with Ctrl+Z.

We, users, don't ask you to remove the keyboard shortcut, because there will also exist defendants for keeping it (we know that some users can't imagine that we can press Ctrl+W by error, they think we don't know how to make our decisions or insist to learn to type; when I read what they write, I know that I can type much better than them, and probably much faster ! Everybody makes typos sometimes, they refuse to recognize it).

All we want is to allow us, the users, to change or remove the default binding of "Ctrl+W" with the "Close window" action, just because it is suoperfluous (no need for multiple equivalent keybindings for such destructive action!

So add this in your preferences (and consider disabling this shortcut by default for the deployment on French versions: Ctrl+W is immediately next to Ctrl+X on a standard French AZERTY keyboard).


Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1. open a complex web form, such as editing a complex table for a Wikipedia article, and spend an huor or two filing the details, testing links and every thing.

2. before submitting press Ctrl+X or Ctrl+C to preserve the content of the editing area.
3. now your hand slides just a millimeter away, and your fingers have pressed Ctrl+W accidently....
4. All your work is lost and unrecoverable, your editing session is closed, and even the clipboard does not contain the text you wanted to edit (anyway it would not be enough for more complex forms with many input fields, because it would contain only the content of the last field!)

Actual Results:  
Ctrl+W closes the window immediately without any prompt, in a unrecoverable way. This shortcut is a nightmare in the middle of other Ctrl+<letter> shortcuts bound to edit actions, and that are ALL cancelable) :

Ctrl+A : select all
Ctrl+Z : undo
Ctrl+Y : redo
Ctrl+X : cut
Ctrl+C : copy
Ctrl+V : paste
Ctrl+F : find
Ctrl+H : replace
Ctrl+N : next occurence

Why Ctrl+W ? This stupid shortcut is even specific to browsers, and not in other applications. It came to Windows and Linux from browsers on the Mac, but was not even needed for Windows and Linux, where Alt+F4 already works equally. 

There's no Ctrl+W shortcut to close the window in Notepad, Word, Excel, Mozilla Mail, OpenOffice, PaintShop, ...

This shortcut has never passed the usability test !

Expected Results:  
Ctrl+W will either:
- opens a confirmation dialog to ask if we really want to close (just like in desktop applications like Notepad for unsaved documents)
- perform nothing
- perform another safe task, configurable by the user (such as muting the sound, or maximizing the window)
And now, nothing is lost!

This bug has been reported many times in the past, but always pushed to the future or to "WONTFIX" by developers of various browsers: they ignore the user demand and their experience on their keyboard. Consider that usability problems SHOULD NEVER be considered by developers but by asking to users and by performing tests (notably for keyboard issues when the developers use another keyboard than their users !).

Ask your users (notably in France), they will all report you an horror story and the furry they had against their browser about this Ctrl+W shortcut that they just discovered for the first time after an accident: Ctrl+W is really not known to most users (because it is quite specific to web browsers), unlike Ctrl+A/X/C/V (which are used almost universally in all applications, in the shell and in system dialogs and control panels).

Those users will often consider this Ctrl+W being a nuisance, acting like a hidden malicious worm (or remote site action) that attempts to delete their online work, closing a window without notice... consider that remote shell scripts that attempt to do the same thing to close the current window are now protected in the security options. If allowing to close a window is a security option, then it should not be forced to be active for the same action initiated by a badly chosen (and compeltely unneeded) keyboard shortcut.