Comment #68 on issue 13 by iambob: Closing last tab also closes window http://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=13
I hate to be the devil's advocate, but the reason this feature is unlikely to change is because doing so would add inconsistency. To the lay-person who has never seen a browser before, why would closing one tab (when others are open) close that tab... but closing the last tab "open a blank tab and minimize to the system tray"? All of these sound like great alternatives, but if the alternative is "do something different when you close the last tab"... it isn't likely going to be implemented, because it is inconsistent. Imagine this is the Windows operating system... and if you close an application, it always closes the application... UNLESS you happen to close the LAST application, and then it just opens up a blank document and minimizes that document to the system tray. This is the type of inconsistency the developers are trying to avoid. A possible alternative is this. If you close the browser using the main close button, it closes immediately. If, however, you close the browser by closing the last tab, it instantly hides the window, but the chrome.exe process stays open for about 5 seconds longer before doing anything. If, within that 5 seconds, you run Chrome again, it simply re-activates that session, but with the startup tab. For those who are bothered by the amount of system resources closing and re-opening Chrome, this should alleviate it for the most part. And although the behavior in the background is inconsistent, the behavior from the user's perspective IS consistent. As far as the user is concerned, the browser closed. While Chrome does load really quickly, it would load even more quickly in these instances where one is more likely to "accidentally" close Chrome and want to immediately re-open it again. Getting a bit more technical, this would mean that when the last tab is still open, there will be two chrome.exe processes in memory; one for the tab and the other for the main Chrome window. When the last tab is closed, that tab's chrome.exe process is killed and the main Chrome window's chrome.exe process remains live, but the window itself is hidden from view. Then, a counter of 5 seconds (or some other well determined time) is started. If Chrome is run by the user again, it simply runs a single chrome.exe tab process which attaches itself to the already existing chrome.exe main window in memory, which then shows itself again. This would theoretically happen as quickly as one would open a new tab in an already running Chrome. If, however, those 5 seconds elapse and Chrome is not run again, the usual shut-down processing can take place and the final chrome.exe process is purged. Thoughts? -- You received this message because you are listed in the owner or CC fields of this issue, or because you starred this issue. You may adjust your issue notification preferences at: http://code.google.com/hosting/settings --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ Automated mail from issue updates at http://crbug.com/ Subscription options: http://groups.google.com/group/chromium-bugs -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
