Apologies for the double mail. Gmail is a great service for lots of things, and completely unusable for others. :)

It seems that no one in the thread is completely happy with how Inkscape currently works in this regard.
Thus, my recommendation after reading and considering what has been said by everyone so far:

Use cases:

1. Action: User opens Open Inkscape
1. Result: Open Untitled new blank document (Same behaviour as now)

2. Action: User immediately opens a file without doing anything on-canvas
2. Result: Load file in current window (don't spawn new one).

3. Action: User closes a document (ctrl-w or otherwise) :
3. Result A: If there are other Inkscape windows open, close document window, leave inkscape running, and all other windows open (current behaviour)
3. Result B: If there are no other Inkscape windows open, close document, but not the window (displaying maybe something like GIMP has with a watermarked Inkscape logo and some message saying "To open a file, new document, or recent file, choose an option from the File menu. Hit Ctrl+W again to close Inkscape"

4. Action: User hits ctrl-w again the empty Inkscape screen
4. Result: Inkscape closes.


Workflow improvements:

Case 1 saves 0 actions (current behaviour)
Case 2 saves -1 action (closing window)  over current behaviour
Case 3B gains +1 action over current behaviour for closing out Inkscape, but saves -1 action having to relaunch Inkscape for those who are still working in Inkscape.


The take-away here is that for the price of having to hit ctrl+w one further time on the last file, you save having to reopen Inkscape, which could in-fact be +2 or +3 actions depending on how the user launches Inkscape, and also the loading time (which may or may not be negligible, depending on the system, etc.) 

Thoughts?

-C



On Mon, Jun 20, 2016 at 1:19 PM, Brynn <brynn@...3133...> wrote:

BTW - replying under what you are replying to, and trimming out the
other parts, is generally considered to be good practice on 'nix
lists - I had not realised how much was underneath your reply until I
attemepted to reply to you.  There is a reason top posting is
usually considered to be evil, even if google promotes it ;-)


I apologize for that.  This is the first time I've ever participated on a mailing list.  Even though it's been over 2 years, no one has ever referred me to some kind of 'best practice for mailing lists' info.

To me, it seems like proper documentation not to delete someone else's comments.  I have noticed that a lot of people use what they call "inline" style of reply, but I often find it confusing to follow.  I always thought it was more of a shortcut, than a desired technique.

As I said, I'm no computer whiz.  Just offering an opposing view, because it seemed like no one else was going to.

(I have seen some developers make a very reasonable argument for the current behavior, so I'm surprised they haven't posted what I've read in the past. Unfortunately, I don't remember exactly what they said.)

Anyway, point me to some kind of mailing list best practice, and I will do my best to follow it.  :-)

All best,
brynn

--------------------------------------------------
From: "Ken Moffat" <zarniwhoop@...3141...>
Sent: Sunday, June 19, 2016 9:10 PM
To: "Brynn" <brynn@...3133...>
Cc: "imagen imperio" <imagen.imperio@...400...>; "C R" <cajhne@...400...>; "inkscape-devel" <inkscape-devel@lists.sourceforge.net>
Subject: Re: [Inkscape-devel] Fwd: features

On Sun, Jun 19, 2016 at 08:18:14PM -0600, Brynn wrote:
Hi Everyone,
Just my simple thoughts :-)

I actually like the current behavior.  It annoys me in GIMP, when I close a
file, then I have to make another step to close the program.


Is it a big deal to close inkscape (or any other program) with a
aingle click ?  I admit I don't use inkscape a lot - mostly only
testing that nothing has obviously broken with newer versions of
other packages - but I use the gimp quite a lot, and if I edit one
image there is a strong likelihood that I will edit another.

And the same for working on spreadsheets and text documents in
libreoffice, so I assume that people who use inkscape heavily will
edit several documents in a session, perhaps even several at one
time (tweak one, make similar changes in another, etc).

Oh - I should add that the netbook where I'm replying to you has
only 1GB RAM (it came with windows 7 but was never able to run that)
and there I usually have things in swap, with a slow laptop disk, so
yes, in that context *everything* can be slow.

However, if keeping Inkscape open when there are no files or documents open,
would lessen the load on the system, when multiple documents are open, I
would be really in favor of that!

You have a problem with the load on the system ?  Even on my 4GB
desktop machine I do not usually have a problem with multiple
programs on multiple desktops - except when I'm rebuilding firefox
and it gets to the point where it links : at that point, even a quiet
system with 4GB RAM can go into swap.

BTW - replying under what you are replying to, and trimming out the
other parts, is generally considered to be good practice on 'nix
lists - I had not realised how much was underneath your reply until I
attemepted to reply to you.  There is a reason top posting is
usually considered to be evil, even if google promotes it ;-)

ĸen
--
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                   Freedom is Slavery
                  Ignorance is Strength