Funny how instead of trying to solve problems, Gnome apps are actually creating new ones, all by themselves, without any outside factor. They must be really bored or something.
All modern desktops have an area called a systray which is a small area where apps that keep running in the background but still provide an interface that is accessed from time to time can be found, usually by displaying their icon here. Such apps are usually music players, instant messaging software, news aggregator, mail clients, etc.. This is useful because the app doesn’t get in the way by being too intrusive. For example you don’t need an instant messenger to take unecessary space when no one is messaging you. Same for a music player, you don’t need it to display anything once you did your music selection and it’s playing.
For these apps, when you press the close button, they go to the systray.. or so you’d think. Because some people think that the close button should be used to close apps, and that for minimizing to systray you should use some obscure keyboard shortcut (ctrl + w, the ‘w’ stands for ‘wankers’) or press the icon in the systray again. Of course, the former behaviour is still available in other apps.
So what happens is that when pressing the close button, some apps will go to the systray and other will just exit. A good example is Rhythmbox which exits when you press the close button. How many users are really running Rhythmbox to play a few seconds then actually quit the app? Probably very very few. How many users said “oh shit” when pressing the same close button? Probably many.
But as usual I bet they’ll spend years and years on that “problem”..
Yes, the different systray behaviour between apps just sucks.
OS X did that right IMHO.
Rhythmbox does have a systray icon.
And if you want it to hide there, click it.
THe close button should always close.
Gnome apps that support the systray are supposed to work like that. Have a tray-icon on launch, click the tray-icon to hide in the tray. Click it again to show the program.
If you minimize it should stay in the taskbar, if you close it, it should close.
This is more consistent. And it confuses only half-experts like yourself. For my parents its simpler, and the reel geeks don’t even have a taskbar. Since they are switching apps using expose or a keyboard shortcut.
But feel free to bash any GUI that isn’t exactly like what you happen to be used to, instead of taking the time to learn it or move on. That approach would perfectly for skin colors people weren’t used to. Or religions they weren’t used to. If you mind is that closed, why even experiment with new desktops? Why even walk on the street? Why travel?