Re: [9front] dangerous Exit menu item in sub-rio

[mkf9 <mkf9@riseup.net>]

How can you be sure "Exit" in the end isn't some real window?
in case you have maximized your subrio and not sure if it's
mainrio or subrio.

% label Exit

igor@9lab.org wrote:
> Quoth Jacob Moody <moody@mail.posixcafe.org>:
>> On 8/18/22 03:17, Steve Simon wrote:
>>> maybe it still has, but mothra used to switch its cursor to a skull’n crossbones if Exit was selected - to indicate another B1 click was needed to confirm the exit, any other mouse button to cancel the exit.
>>>
>>> -Steve
>>
>> Yes mothra still has this behavior. I am not opposed to adding
>> a confirmation step. When the first patch was discussed I took a survey
>> and the leading idea seemed to just be to have it exit. I think some of
>> this comes down to how you use subrios. For how I use them, a premature
>> exit would not ruin my morning. But I can very much imagine someone having
>> a workflow where that would be quite the damper on their morning.
>>
>> It seems to me that people that get quite a bit of mileage out of subrios
>> would prefer to have a confirmation exit step. For those that don't, one
>> more mouse click is not a painful compromise.
> […]
> 
> Thanks for the option to `Exit` a sub-rio.  The comment about a
> confirmation before exiting made me remeber the `Window Systems Should
> Be Transparent` [1] paper by Rob Pike where he asserts that
> ``confirmations don't work'', here the relevant section:
> 
> ``Mux doesn’t ask for confirmation to do risky things.  It always does
> what the user asks.  The most obvious case is deleting a window.  The
> protocol for deleting a window is a two-step process: select Delete,
> then indicate which window.  The action can be aborted before picking
> the window, so there is an element of safety built in; selecting
> Delete does not immediately endanger any window.  This is one reason
> why a window must be selected by a button click rather than just by
> the position of the mouse.  Once in a while a window is accidentally
> deleted, but this will happen whatever precautions are taken, and the
> pain of recovering it must be weighed against the bother of dealing
> with a complicated protocol for deletion.  (Presumably software has
> some safeguards; editors will save their contents, for example.)
> Confirmations are ignored in practice.  Once a user is at all familiar
> with a system, the confirmations are executed without thinking about
> them; the act of deletion becomes ‘click, click’ instead of ‘click,
> read the message, think about it, click.''
> 
> Note how Pike argues that confirmations don't work, however,
> dangerous operations like `Delete` are a two step process.
> 
> I have accidentally `Exit`ed from sub-rio and unfortunately it
> does keep happening and I think one reason is because `Exit'
> is *not* a two-step process, another reason might be because
> `Exit' might be buried in the menu when many windows are opened.
> 
> Consider a menu that looks something like this:
> 
>    New
>   Move
> Resize
> Delete
>   Hide
>   Exit
> Window1
> Window2
> Window3
> ...
> WindowN
> 
> Because `Exit` is buried somewhere in the middle, trying to select
> `Window1` or `Hide` sometimes results in accidentally selecting
> `Exit`, exiting a sub-rio with many windows.
> 
> Why does `Delete` not apply to a sub-rio, i.e., why does selecting
> `Delete` and then clicking on the gray background of sub-rio not close
> the sub-rio?  That way it would remain a two-step process and there
> is no need to add another menu option.
> 
> Another option is to move `Exit` to the very bottom, below all the
> windows, e.g.:
> 
>    New
>   Move
> Resize
> Delete
>   Hide
> Window1
> Window2
> Window3
> ...
> WindowN
>   Exit
> 
> That way one is less likely to click `Exit` when trying to `Hide` or
> select a window.
> 
> While typing this email I believe moody mentioned to have implemented
> a confirmation step similar to mothra. That is indeed another option
> and one that most people are familiar with as well.
> 
> Cheers,
> Igor
>