Given: Okay so I have a little “X” in the top right hand screen of my broswer.
Given: -or- I can click “File”, then drag my mouse to “Close.” (phew, tough work)
Question: Does anyone actually use the second method? Is there a difference? Does Bill Gates get mad if I don’t close my browser using the “File” tab?
There are several ways to perform the same function, so what’s so special about the close? After selecting what you want, you can right click and “copy,” or you can go to Edit and Copy. (Same with Paste.) I’m not one to bicker about having several ways to do the same thing.
It’s worse than you think. You can use ctrl-alt-del to close the same window, or you can use alt-f4. It’s a conspiracy, I tell ya, a conspiracy!
I don’t know if this is right or not, but couldn’t it also be a means to appease the Apple people?
That is, many moons ago when netscape ran supreme on many mac machines (I remember reading this somewhere, some time ago- I still don’t know if it’s true or not.), it had a set way to close out the program- You need to go into the file deally and hit close for the whole program to shut down.
I’d bet dollars to donuts (I’ve been dying to use that phrase.) that the Gates people wanted to make it easier for those used to macs and netscape to switch on over to their product.
I betcha!
Besides, I’m with Bartitu8 on this one, I like a varitety of ways of do things. Choices are gooooood.
The menu commands in the overhead menus of Windows programs are generally going to be identical to those in the Macintosh version. Macintosh programs ALWAYS* have New Document or New Window (if applicable), Close Window (if applicable), Open Document (if applicable), Page Setup and Print (if printing is applicable), and Quit in the File menu, which is always the menu item farthest to the left. Similarly, you will ALWAYS have Undo (if applicable), Cut, Copy, and Paste in the Edit menu, which is always the seond menu item from the left. [There are also standard keystroke equivs: Command-N for New; O for open; W for Close Window; P for Print; Q for Quit; Z for Undo; X for Cut; C for Copy; V for Paste. The keystroke equivs are less standard on the PC side, but Control plus the letters mentioned above is often implemented, except for quitting the application, which for some godforsaken reason is Alt-F4 more often than anything else]
The Windows operating system generally uses a double-window system: one window for the whole application, in which a window gadget with an X exits the application; and one or more document windows, in which the same window gadget with the X closes that particular document window. Given the existence of these, you could argue that there is no need for a Close item (or for that matter an Exit Program item) in the File menu, but with rare exceptions Microsoft keeps the menu commands consistent between the two operating systems.
There is one difference in some situations. For some application windows exiting via the “x” will not save the last adjusted window size of the app being closed whereas “file > exit/close” shutdown will.
Also, you can close a window by double-clicking on the little icon in the upper-left corner. Something left over from the transition of Windows 3.1 to Windows 95.
And you can also close the window by right-clicking on the little “e” in the upper left corner and selecting Close.
Or right-click anywhere in the titlebar and choose close. Or right-click it in the program icon in the toolbar (to the right of the start button on the bottom of the screen) and choose close.
So I count 8 ways to close a standard windows program. 10 ways if you include Ctrl-Alt-Del and closing it from the Task manager.
Frankly, one way is good enough for me (I’m a Alt-F4 man, myself). But that’s one of those backwards compatibility things. Who wants to hear some user complain bacause he can’t close a program with File/Close anymore?
Or you can use ALT and F then C (while keep holding down on the ALT kay.)
Great stuff to know if your mouse hoses up on you and you want a clean shutdown.