824507 - Reimplement Exit button on menu

Status: RESOLVED DUPLICATE of bug 820844

(Firefox for Android Graveyard :: General, defect)

Description

[Paul [pwd]]

User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; rv:20.0) Gecko/20121224 Firefox/20.0
Build ID: 20121224030902

Steps to reproduce:

This was deemed unnecessary before and was something that users were vocal about to the point it was added back as a result of that popular demand. It's now gone once again.

While the reality is that you don't need an exit button, it's a concept that users are used to and appreciate. Do we really need to make the learning curve into product any steeper?

I still hear people bemoaning the lack of exit button in Chrome and that's been out for a while and perhaps doesn't have the freedom of Firefox.

On top of that, we've greatly increased the user interaction requirements to close all tabs and exit. Going from two steps up to now four in the app and then an additional step outside of the app. It's also worth noting that the most popular phones (Samsung Galaxy S2 and Galaxy S3) don't feature a Recent Apps button in the primary UI.

Comment 1

[Mark Capella [:capella]]

Fyi - I've published an add-on called QuitNow that does this.

Comment 2

[Mark Capella [:capella]]

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/android/addon/quitnow/?src=category

Comment 3

[Karen Rudnitski [:kar]]

I thought we had, indeed, removed it to reflect and parallel the user experience on Android (other applications don't have an 'exit' button). But it seems on my GA, beta and aurora versions on my Nexus running JB, there is a 'quit' menu item - is this what is being referred to here or am I reading this wrong?

Comment 4

[Aaron Train [:aaronmt]]

(In reply to Karen Rudnitski from comment #3)
> I thought we had, indeed, removed it to reflect and parallel the user
> experience on Android (other applications don't have an 'exit' button). But
> it seems on my GA, beta and aurora versions on my Nexus running JB, there is
> a 'quit' menu item - is this what is being referred to here or am I reading
> this wrong?

This is a Nightly (Firefox 20) thing at the moment.

Comment 5

[Karen Rudnitski [:kar]]

Thanks, Aaron - I was using an older nightly seemingly, which has just updated. And yes, I am happy and expecting for 'quit' to be removed in order to comply with the expected user experience & behavior within the Android OS. 

We want to simplify and shorten menus where we can - and Paul, while I do understand your position, you also point out that there are other ways of exiting the application so we are not losing this ability.

Comment 6

[Paul [pwd]]

I remember I had this conversation/debate with some Googlers. The end result was that they agreed with the Firefox implementation of Exit, but disagreed with the naming scheme. While the lack of Exit button does fit with most of the platform, browsing is far more complex for that. Especially now with a split tab list. I disagree that we're not losing this ability, especially given that we've at least doubled the number of taps to exit the program. But I accept the decision nonetheless.

Comment 7

[Mark Capella [:capella]]

fwiw... a lot of Android apps maintain a Quit / Exit button, or at least provide it with a pref.

I like having it and had already added it back to my personal patches library (small perk of contributing) when I noticed the Add-on suggestion in the original bugzilla where it was removed and thought the idea was a good middle-road path.

Comment 9

[Aaron Train [:aaronmt]]

Since this result is going to cause a lot of negative attention in duplicate bugs and SUMO reports, :tyler will there be a SUMO article?

Comment 10

[Tyler Downer [He/Him]]

We don't currently have plans for a SUMO article. I think the best approach is to wait for Beta, see if we are getting alot of negative feedback around this, and plan for an article if we need it. I'll loop in the mobile support coordinator, Roland. He'll make the final call on this :)

Comment 11

[Gabriela [:gaby2300]]

I'm sorry but I completely disagree! Why wait for the hazzle of negative feedback for the Beta, risking a rating decrease when keeping the Quit option doesn't produce any issue at all?
I use a Samsung Galaxy S2 phone with Android 4.0.3 and I hate to see the Quit option gone in Nightly!