firefox message is it an error or not

[Sam Varshavchik]

Frank Cox writes:

> On Tue, 14 Aug 2007 20:25:30 -0400
> Sam Varshavchik <mrsam at courier-mta.com> wrote:
> 
>> n fact, when you logout/shutdown in Windows, if an 
>> application ignores the windows termination message, windows will refuse to 
>> shut down until you explicitly/implicitly kill the app.
> 
> I submit that this is a bad thing to have happen.  When people log out, they
> want to log out and leave, not hang around and watch the machine and make sure
> that it actually decides to go back to the login screen after so-many seconds
> resetting and reloading.  In a secure environment, that could easily
> lead to an unlocked, logged-in terminal being left running after someone thinks
> that he logged out but apparently didn't.

Nobody said that X should wait for applications to terminate. What /should/ 
happen is that applications should be aware of X's graceful termination, and 
gracefully terminate themselves, instead of what Firefox is apparently doing 
now: bombing out and claiming that something went wrong, the next time it 
starts.

That's probably how I'd frame the main objection: the wording on that dialog 
box gives you the false impression that something went wrong when Firefox 
previously terminated, when it was nothing of that sort: X gracefully 
terminated upon user request. That's all that happened, yet Firefox is 
complaining about the allegedly-unexpected termination.

If Firefox cannot determine if X is gracefully terminated, then the right 
thing to do is to simply always throw that dialog box open every time 
Firefox starts, and change the wording to just ask the user if he wishes to 
reopen the same pages and tabs that were open when Firefox previously 
terminated, or start afresh. Or, open the home page every time, but put a 
conspicuously-visible button up at the top to reopen all the 
previously-opened tabs.



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