choosing quit from unity launcher doesn't close rhythmbox if music is playing

That's the way rhythmbox behaves, that's not a bug.

If a user chooses "quit", but the program doesn't quit, it is clearly a usability problem. I don't know if it's a bug in Unity or Rhythmbox, but it's a bug nevertheless.

Confirming. If the menu item is meant to close the window and not quit the application, it'd be labeled such.

Also of note is that at least in the Finnish locale, the menu item actually translates to 'Close' and not 'Quit', so there it behaves as intended.

I think adding a settings option for this would be the best way to go, with the default being that pressing the "X" button will fully quit the application and halt any music playback. This is what the user has been trained to expect from using the other applications on Ubuntu, so Rhythmbox shouldn't behave any differently unless explicitly asked.

Or you could make this non-standard behaviour a plugin that you install (or not) by default, so that users can disable it if they don't want it. I think this was already done this way in the past.

Please do NOT introduce preferences or plugins or whatnot for just plain wrong behaviour. This has to be fixed, because it is a bug and that's all. If Rhythmbox gets a preference for this kind of behaviour, then every program should have one. Or why shouldn't they? Either make RB behave like the other programs or make the other programs behave like RB. Right now on Ubuntu there is this weird mix between OS X-like application-based behaviour where closing the app's window does not end the program and the Windows-like window-based opposite.

Please, read this article by Joel Spolsky about introducing preferences, which fits in here perfectly:

http://www.joelonsoftware.com/uibook/chapters/fog0000000059.html

Chris, are you sure bug #694860 is a duplicate? As mentioned by Sebastien there, that one has roots in a spec [1] ("A compliant player should also keep playing if you close its window while it is playing") whereas this one is just incorrect behavior (selecting 'Quit' doesn't actually quit). FWIF, I don't agree with the spec and agree with Michael above: RB as all music players should just behave like other apps do without exceptions or special addons.

(It seems that the Finnish locale now also has 'Quit' translated to mean quit and not 'Close' as it was when I commented above.)

*[1] https://wiki.ubuntu.com/SoundMenu#Music_player_section

The problem is simply due to the fact that Ubuntu has other standards than GNOME. And that's why I think it would be better for them to change those standards using removable plugins instead of directly patching the application. This way, it is still possible to use Ubuntu as a base for a standard GNOME-based distribution while still benefitting from the greatness of Ubuntu.

Jani, I can't be certain since I haven't looked at the code, but I think the "Quit" action on the Unity Launchpad is simply forwarding to the same function that is called when clicking the close button on the title bar. I believe that these are both the same issue being described in different ways - In the case of this report, it's not quitting when you choose to quit _because_ the spec says it shouldn't.

In hindsight, my earlier idea of having an option does seem like a bad one. Rhythmbox should just be patched to not do this, though I'm not entirely sure how difficult that would be.

@Chris: I was looking at bug #616447 with a long discussion about this issue as a global basis.
John Lea seems to be monitoring the bug, perhaps we can ask him for input?

@Dario, good idea. Do you want to get his attention and point him to these
two bugs, and also see if he can suggest how it should work?

I don't think it's necessary to keep the music playing when the window is closed. The only reason I can think of for this to have been decide originally is to reduce the amount of space that 'background' apps took up on the taskbar in pre-Unity Ubuntu. Now that Unity is here, we have a much more efficient way of managing active applications via the Launcher, and minimising it to there is unlikely to impact the user-experience since I believe the user is likely to already have locked the icon to the Launcher.

I believe that the section on https://wiki.ubuntu.com/SoundMenu#compliance should be amended to remove the following passage

"A compliant player should also keep playing if you close its window while it is playing"

and that Rhythmbox should be patched to stop playing regardless of whether it was "close" or "quit" that the user selected.

Nick, can design please provide some input on this?

Comment from the developer:

"The behaviour in question is introduced by an Ubuntu patch. Without
this, rhythmbox will always quit when the window is closed.

As far as I'm concerned, applications should never do this type of
thing. Either window management should work well enough that users
don't feel the need to close windows for background type applications
to get them out of the way, or the window manager should implement
this sort of feature for all such applications so it's consistent."

We discussed this at length on the Ayatana ML in 2011.
Effectively what was suggested back then was that the close button design should be different from the close&quit button.

I believe we should remove the close button from the window decoration, where the application doesn't quit on window close.
The action associated with "closing without quitting the process" is more like minimizing or hiding.
Closing i.e. "(x)" is clearly mentally associated with quitting, and it should be absolutely unambiguous.

"Effectively what was suggested back then was that the close button design should be different from the close&quit button."

You don't give an argument *why* this is necessary.

"I believe we should remove the close button from the window decoration, where the application doesn't quit on window close.
The action associated with "closing without quitting the process" is more like minimizing or hiding.
Closing i.e. "(x)" is clearly mentally associated with quitting, and it should be absolutely unambiguous."

This would be a hack as a workaround for another hack. Why not *fix* it correctly by removing the wrong behavior in the first place?

Yes, that of course would be the cleanest way of going about it, I fully
agree.
On Dec 12, 2012 9:01 AM, "Michael Kanis" <email address hidden> wrote:

> "Effectively what was suggested back then was that the close button
> design should be different from the close&quit button."
>
> You don't give an argument *why* this is necessary.
>
> "I believe we should remove the close button from the window decoration,
> where the application doesn't quit on window close.
> The action associated with "closing without quitting the process" is more
> like minimizing or hiding.
> Closing i.e. "(x)" is clearly mentally associated with quitting, and it
> should be absolutely unambiguous."
>
> This would be a hack as a workaround for another hack. Why not *fix* it
> correctly by removing the wrong behavior in the first place?
>
> --
> You received this bug notification because you are subscribed to a
> duplicate bug report (966885).
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/875002
>
> Title:
> choosing quit from unity launcher doesn't close rhythmbox if music is
> playing
>
> Status in One Hundred Paper Cuts:
> Confirmed
> Status in “rhythmbox” package in Ubuntu:
> Triaged
>
> Bug description:
> To reproduce: Start rhythmbox. Start playing a song. Left click
> rhythmbox icon in unity launcher. Choose Quit.
>
> Application doesn't quit, music keeps playing, only the window closes.
> To really quit the application, put the song on pause and then choose
> quit.
>
> ProblemType: Bug
> DistroRelease: Ubuntu 11.10
> Package: rhythmbox 2.90.1~20110908-0ubuntu1
> ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 3.0.0-12.20-generic 3.0.4
> Uname: Linux 3.0.0-12-generic x86_64
> NonfreeKernelModules: fglrx
> ApportVersion: 1.23-0ubuntu3
> Architecture: amd64
> Date: Sat Oct 15 15:43:51 2011
> EcryptfsInUse: Yes
> InstallationMedia: Ubuntu 11.04 "Natty Narwhal" - Release amd64
> (20110427.1)
> ProcEnviron:
> LC_CTYPE=en_GB.UTF-8
> PATH=(custom, user)
> LANG=en_GB.UTF-8
> SHELL=/bin/bash
> SourcePackage: rhythmbox
> UpgradeStatus: Upgraded to oneiric on 2011-10-14 (0 days ago)
>
> To manage notifications about this bug go to:
> https://bugs.launchpad.net/hundredpapercuts/+bug/875002/+subscriptions
>

There are also this unconsistency where right clicking on the dash icon and selecting the quit option behaves like clicking on the cross and not like the file->quit option.