[SDL] Alt-F4 not working on Windows

[Charles McGarvey]

I don't know about the others, but I'm pretty sure Blizzard does make ALT-F4 
exit the application (at least in WC3).  If you're in a game, it will ask 
you if you really want to quit, otherwise it will just quit (as most people 
would expect).  This seems like the best solution; better than pressing 
<esc> and hoping you don't have to search through menus to make the app 
quit.  From the full-screen games I've played, ALT-F4 is every bit a 
"convention" as <esc> is, ALT-F4 being the "exit immediately, no foolin'" 
method.

Most people will want ALT-F4 to exactly represent closing a window (or 
exiting the app if full-screen), so it make sense to correlate it with the 
'quit' event as the _default_ (but overridable) behavior.  IMO.

chaz

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Paul Duffy" <odubtaig at yahoo.co.uk>
To: "A list for developers using the SDL library. (includes SDL-announce)" 
<sdl at lists.libsdl.org>
Sent: Monday, May 05, 2008 1:08 PM
Subject: Re: [SDL] Alt-F4 not working on Windows


>
> --- Erik <libsdl.org at mail.obsequious.org> wrote:
>
>> You can't usefully block control-alt-delete on Windows, so that's not
>> a
>> problem. Incidentally, I believe that alt-f4, control-alt-delete and
>> alt-tab, by virtue of being Windows application/window management
>> functions,
>> should (in the vast majority of cases) sacrosanct because they should
>> be
>> available even if you don't know anything about the game, on
>> anybody's
>> Windows machine. If you change those, anybody not familiar with your
>> application is going to be screwed. In effect your game is changing
>> the
>> rules of the OS, which is not acceptable IMO. unless we are talking
>> emulators, most applications are not little worlds unto themselves.
>> They are
>> apps on a platform and they should obey the platform convention to a
>> at
>> least the minimal extent that you can close or navigate away from the
>> app.
>> Not making that the default behavior encourages abuse IMO.
>>
>
> Well, someone needs to tell EA, Blizzard, Lucasartsm ID and all the
> others to stop doing things the way they're doing them because
> apparently blocking Alt+F4 is a major problem, only no-one's told them
> about it in over 10 years. Since before the GUI was actually part of
> the Microsoft O/S, and not just running on top of it, the convention
> has been to use Esc to bring up a menu to quit and it's something few,
> if any, people don't understand so trying to force something that is a
> matter of opinion on people by claiming that it 'encourages abuse'
> (with exactly zero evidence to back this up) is conceited and arrogant.
>
> Unless you can pull up some figures demonstrating that this actually
> causes a problem, there is absolutely no reason to enforce this as a
> requirement. I agree it should be available should the _developer_
> require it. Enforcing it as a mandatory requirement, however, is just
> forcing something as insubstantial as a subjective opinion on other
> people.
>
> I don't even care if you're referring to those irritating cutscenes
> which block all control and which you have to sit through whether you
> like it or not because there is no reason why they couldn't block a
> quit request (and it is a request) just the same way whether it's
> through Esc or Alt+F4 e.g
>
> int quit( pointers for data freeing )
> {
>
> }
>
> --
>
> "Duct tape is like the Force. It has a dark side, it has a
> light side, and it holds the Universe together."
> -Carl Zwanig
>
>
> 
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