“minimize to tray” has strange behaviour on Ubuntu 11.10 #692

1. 
   laanwj commented at 8:39 pm on December 9, 2011: member

   “Minimize to tray” configuration option has really strange behavior on Ubuntu 11.10:

   • When minimize is clicked, the window disappears (as expected)
   • After that, if the tray icon is clicked in the notification area and “Open bitcoin” is selected to bring it back, the window does not come back; a bitcoin icon is added to the unity bar (on the left) though
   • Clicking on this icon on the unity bar does nothing
   • However, after switching focus to another program, the icon on the unity bar does bring the Bitcoin main window back

   “Minimize on close” does work as expected. Clicking the “x” hides the window, and the tray icon can bring it back instantly.

   BTW a pet peeve of mine is that these separate options are pretty confusing. Do we really them need both? It seems that most programs with similar background functionality implement “Minimize to tray on close”.

2. 
   gavinandresen commented at 10:21 pm on December 9, 2011: contributor

   GUIs shouldn’t be design-by-committee– if you think minimize-to-tray-on-close is the right thing to do, I say do it that way.
3. 
   laanwj commented at 9:18 am on December 10, 2011: member

   I agree that design-by-committee doesn’t work, but it’s always useful to know how (and if, and why) people use certain features.

   So when I look at other programs, for example the music players and chat programs in Ubuntu or something like utorrent in windows, they usually work this way:

   • First time you try to close the window with ‘x’ they ask what to do; “stay in the task bar”, or quit
   • “stay in the task bar” is effectively our “Minimize to tray”, but happens on close not on minimize.
   • Minimizing such windows results in normal window minimize behavior

   I haven’t seen “minimize” overridden in any other modern programs. This could explain why Qt (in combination with window managers) is having difficulties with it (both this issue and #691) .

4. 
   Vort commented at 1:41 pm on December 16, 2011: none

   I haven’t seen “minimize” overridden in any other modern programs.

   uTorrent for example It has two options:

   • Close closes uT to tray
   • Minimize minimizes uT to tray
5. 
   laanwj commented at 1:44 pm on December 16, 2011: member

   You mean “it always does both” or those are actually two separate, user-configurable options?
6. 
   Vort commented at 2:00 pm on December 16, 2011: none

   You mean “it always does both” or those are actually two separate, user-configurable options?

   two separate options one for close override, second for minimize override screenshot: http://thesocialmediaguide.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/04/ui-settings.jpg

7. 
   laanwj commented at 2:36 pm on December 16, 2011: member

   Thanks…
8. laanwj closed this on Feb 14, 2012

   ---

9. jpentland referenced this in commit eb76f789f5 on Feb 7, 2016
10. Losangelosgenetics referenced this in commit d55fa808a4 on Mar 12, 2020
11. rajarshimaitra referenced this in commit a6568fbdd8 on Aug 5, 2021
12. MarcoFalke locked this on Sep 8, 2021

Contributors
laanwj gavinandresen Vort