
⌘Q is too damn close to ⌘W - sprsquish
http://squishtech.posterous.com/q-is-too-damn-close-to-w
======
thought_alarm
The reason it's not normally a problem is that if you're working on a document
and you hit ⌘Q (or ⌘W for that matter) you will be prompted to save your
changes.

However, this does become a problem in web browsers and file browsers where
there are no changes to save.

Apparently in the early days of OS X the NEXTSTEP guys wanted to add a ⌘Q
shortcut to Finder, which would log you out of OS X. As the story goes, some
people at Apple really hated that idea, so after some lively debate they
settled on ⌘⇧Q instead. (As a bonus, it's now a global shortcut, so you don't
have to be in Finder to use it.)

Similar problem with web browsers. You can give it a different shortcut, or
you can enable a prompt to warn when closing multiple tabs. Most people opt
for the latter.

~~~
parenthesis
In earlier versions of OS X (<= 10.3 (?)), ⌘Q when in the Finder quits it,
just like any other application, which was a little disconcerting the first
time you did it (by mistake).

~~~
philwelch
This wasn't the case at all, at least not on stock OS X (who knows what you
could enable with haxies). You could certainly force quit the Finder, but it
just relaunched immediately.

~~~
parenthesis
Well, that's funny, because I'm using vanilla OS X 10.3.4 right now, and I
just quit the Finder in the way that I said.

Screenshots:

<http://www.alexmaslin.org/quit-finder.jpg>

<http://www.alexmaslin.org/no-finder.jpg>

It doesn't relaunch automatically. You either have to click on the Finder icon
in the Dock, or otherwise it relaunches itself if you quit all other open
applications.

~~~
philwelch
That's extremely funny, but I'm almost completely certain that's not as
"vanilla" as you think it is. Perhaps it was enabled on the command line? It
looks like

    
    
      defaults write com.apple.finder QuitMenuItem -bool YES
    

will do the trick. So perhaps you're operating from a custom com.apple.finder
preferences file.

~~~
parenthesis
Yes you are right. I have absolutely no recollection of tweaking this, but it
seems it has been done. (I just checked a different, definitely unadulterated
10.3.x install, and it doesn't have the Finder quit menu item.) Thanks for
correcting me.

------
dedward
Most browsers warn you if you are about to close multiple tabs.... I guess
chrome doesn't? Weird.

That would be an implementation problem for chrome - every other OSX
application tends to properly warn you if you are about to close multiple
context windows with cmd-q.

EDIT: Just researching a bit- this seems to be a conflict between the Chromium
design goals and the OSX UI guidelines... the Chrome team absolutely refuses
to add a warning dialog if you try to close multiple tabs, but it would be the
expected behaviour on OSX.

I tend to fall on the side of OSX - part of what makes it great is UI
consistency - and this is one case where Chromium is making things worse, not
better.

~~~
abraham
The latest developer version of Chrome (9.x) has an experimental warning
dialog in "about:flags".

~~~
shrikant
Where? I have 9.0.570.1 on Windows 7 (32-bit) and I don't see such an option
in the about:flags.

The only flag relating to tabs I can see is the first one to put the tabs down
the side.

~~~
abraham
The flag is "Confirm to Quite". It might be Mac (v 9.0.572.1) only right now
as I don't see it in Linux (v 9.0.570.1).

~~~
thisisblurry
I'm 99% certain that this is a Mac-only option for now. It might make it's way
into the other OS builds, but I don't think it is currently set up for them.

~~~
shrikant
Might be a v9.0.572.1 only option, and that version seems to have only made
its way to Macs as yet. Windows and Linux seem to be at v9.0.570.1 still.

~~~
zandor
I've got v9.0.577.0 running on Linux and I don't have it either.

------
jemfinch
Do people really not know that Chrome has an option to reopen itself with the
tabs you had open last? Preferences > Basics > On Startup > Reopen the pages
that were open last.

~~~
alunny
Well yes, but if you have 20+ tabs open in a couple of windows, it's
disruptive and time consuming to close and reopen all of them.

~~~
glhaynes
And I'm sometimes a little annoyed at all the things to which I've been saying
for the last week "I'll get back to that" suddenly showing up in my company's
proxy logs all at once.

~~~
jemfinch
If that's a serious concern you might want to rethink your company ;)

------
slig
Latest chrome (9.x dev) has an option in "about:flags" to show you a kind of
confirmation box before quitting.

~~~
sp4rki
This has been the best tip I've ever gotten. Thank you kind sir for having
changed my life so drastically in just a second!

+1

------
martingordon
I've had this happen to me in Chrome a few times recently (I switched to
Chrome full time a few weeks ago), but I've never had it happen in Safari
since Safari prompts you if you have multiple tabs/windows open.

~~~
glhaynes
Safari didn't prompt for the first major version or two — and didn't have
'reopen all windows from last session', either. Suuuuck.

------
megrimlock
What's really needed here is not more distance between hotkeys, but instead
universal lightweight undo for user interactions.

The most precious resource is the user's time. There should be no interaction
that irreversibly discards the user's work. We have fairly universal undo for
editing operations; there should be just as much undo support for closing
windows, tabs, or apps -- carefully constructed artifacts of the user's
workflow.

~~~
andreyf
Tabs: ⇧⌘T

Apps: double tap

Windows: Good idea! If only there was an OS that treated those as vital UI
components...

------
katovatzschyn
"The Opposite of Fitts' Law - The Ejector Seat Analogy"

[http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2010/03/the-opposite-of-
fit...](http://www.codinghorror.com/blog/2010/03/the-opposite-of-fitts-
law.html)

------
kamechan
no keymap is without its annoyances. in DVORAK, ⌘w is right next to ⌘v
(paste). i close windows all the time :(

~~~
nanotone
On the other hand, in Dvorak, Q is directly above the left ⌘ key (where X
usually is), and W is directly above the right ⌘ key (where , usually is). I'm
always reminded of this serendipitous symmetry whenever people complain about
⌘Q and ⌘W being adjacent on QWERTY.

~~~
kamechan
absolutely. this is a wonderful thing...i may close a lot of windows, but i
don't usually quit the entire program unless i mean to.

~~~
myhf
unless somebody steps up to my computer and tries to cut some text

------
scott_s
In vi, I use control+w to shift between the sections of a split window. You
can imagine the hilarity that used to ensue. But, it's not an issue anymore. I
haven't made that mistake in well over a year.

~~~
BCM43
Similarly, in emacs I use ctrl+n to go down. On FF, this will open 5-20
windows, depending on how long I wait. (I have a very fast repeat.) Pentadacty
with emacs bindings has helped with, but occasionally I will hit the key to
pass all keys to FF, and once again end up with ~20 windows to close.

~~~
leif
Me too, ugh. I also can't tell you how many times I've hit M-d thinking I'd
delete a word and then keep typing, and end up writing all over the address
bar instead.

------
mhd
German hackers represent: On a German keyboard on Windows or Linux, you have
to enter a few characters with the right Alt key (the "AltGr" key). This
includes the "@" sign, which is located on the "Q" key. A lot of first-time
switchers thus cause their browser to close every time they try to enter an
email address.

Incidentally, the "@" sign, as many other characters, is on a different key on
the German Mac layout. Never understood why e.g. the US layout stays the same
on every system, but the German one doesn't. Good time that I switched to the
US one long ago. Now I only have to fight with different ways to access
umlauts…

------
tedge
With a bit of practice, you can train your hand to do ⌘-W as a 3-finger
"chord" by touching your middle finger to the 'Q' key before allowing your
index finger to depress the 'W'.

------
erikano
I'm using Firefox and Vimperator [1] with a TypeMatrix EZ-Reach 2030 [2]
mapped to US-Dvorak under FreeBSD 8.1 with xmonad [3] + xmobar [4].

This means that:

\- When my fingers are resting on the home row, they are on keys _a, o, e, u_
and _h, t, n, s_.

\- When I want to close a tab in Firefox, I press _d_ , which is left of _h_.

\- When I want to quit Firefox completely, I press _:q_.

I can't remember the last time I closed a tab I didn't want to close or exited
Firefox without meaning to do so. The only problem I had for a while, was that
I started "record macro" with _q_ when I meant to scroll with _j_ \- that
hasn't happened for quite some time now.

I mostly only use Chromium if I am logged in on various sites in Firefox and I
need to use my server as proxy to access a web service bound to 127.0.0.1 on
the server (meaning that it is not publicly accessible), while also using the
sites I am logged in on in Firefox. I always quit Chromium by closing all
tabs, and as mentioned by others, _Ctrl+w_ is far away from _Ctrl+q_.

[1]: <http://vimperator.org/vimperator>

[2]: <http://typematrix.com/ezr2030/>

[3]: <http://xmonad.org/>

[4]: <http://hackage.haskell.org/package/xmobar>

------
zaius
I use this to map it to ⌘⇧Q

defaults write com.google.Chrome NSUserKeyEquivalents '{"Quit Google
Chrome"="@$Q";}'

------
limmeau
On German Windows keyboards, @ is on right-Alt-Q. Recently, I had a (Windows-
trained) guest who wanted to write an email on my Mac, but Firefox kept
"crashing".

------
ewjordan
Huh. I guess that's true, for some reason I've never noticed it before.

I usually keep my left hand on my "home keys" when browsing (Firefox user
here), in order from pinky to thumb, q-w-e-f-⌘, of which I use w, f, and ⌘ on
a regular basis, and I guess that usually keeps me from mis-hitting q when I
mean w, I'd actually have to push the wrong finger, which is pretty rare.

Right thumb goes on the trackpad for mouse interactions (much easier now that
the MBP trackpad presses in rather than having a button), other four fingers
on that hand go on j-k-l-; (⌘+j/k/l I use all the time for
downloads/search/address bar, ; is wasted, of course). Scrolling is the only
thing that sucks, but you can get pretty far with space/shift+space (hit space
with left thumb, shift with right pinky).

If I had a problem with this, I'd probably go with the WoW shortcut for
quitting, alt+command+Q, which is pretty hard to do accidentally (Double-thumb
keypress? Expert move...) and doesn't tend to be bound to anything else.
Command+1 seems like a bad idea because some of us are very used to
Command+(number) to switch to tabs.

------
Argorak
Huh? I never had that problem and do actually like it that way. Train yourself
to use the middle finger for "W" and the ring finger for pressing "Q" and the
problem vanishes. It will still happen to you perhaps once per month, but I
can live with that.

~~~
thisisblurry
This is how I do it and exactly as you say, I rarely end up doing the
unintended action.

------
jrockway
C-x C-c is too close to C-x C-b.

~~~
pjscott
Quitting emacs should be a fairly rare task; just remap C-x C-c to something
harder to hit by accident in your .emacs file.

(I would do this myself, but I keep putting it off.)

~~~
jrockway
Oh, I do. Same with C-z as mentioned below. When I'm in a terminal-based
session, I keep C-x C-c and C-z around. When I'm in my main X-based session,
C-z is zap-to-char and C-x C-c is bury-buffer.

------
cookiecaper
This has bitten me several times and it really sucks. The "Restore Tab"
function doesn't restore the state of Flash applications and it doesn't
restore content in some input boxes (like those on Facebook, because they are
hidden by JS initially).

If you're in Private Browsing mode and this happens, you lose the whole
session forever, and that just happened to me the other day. It was really
frustrating. :(

------
jolan
In Chrome, I just use Ctrl+Shift+T when this happens.

~~~
sprsquish
Maybe it's a version thing, but Ctrl+Shift+T doesn't work for me. Cmd+Shift+T
does. But will it restore all the tabs you had open when you accidentally
quit?

~~~
jolan
Oops, yeah it's Ctrl on non-Mac and Cmd on Mac. It does restore the tabs.

------
meelash
I've never had this happen to me if I recall. Do the people who have a problem
with this not keep their hand in "typing position"? It seems really difficult
to me, with my left hand in position (which can be assured with the F dot) to
hit W with my pinky or Q with my ring finger.

------
d0m
In theory maybe but in practice I've never typed cmd+q instead of cmd+w. (A
little bit like I've never typed ctrl+a (which select all) instead of ctrl+s
(which save)).

However, I've pressed f1 instead of escape a couple of time so I make sure to
bind f1 to escape in vim

------
FluidDjango
That's why for applications that I do not want to quit easily I set
"Application (keyboard) Shortcuts" [ OS X ] to require something less commonly
used (like cntl-opt-cmd-Q) for quitting. [ OS X System Preferences -> Keyboard
]

------
wdr1
This doesn't seem to work for me using Firefox on Snow Leopard. The menu
changes to the crazy keyboard shortcut I give to Quit (and sure enough the
crazy combo works as well), however Cmd-Q _still_ quits Firefox as well.

~~~
hexley
That's because Mac Firefox is a dirty, filthy no-good hack.

------
ankushnarula
FWIW... This is a useful resource when trying to remap shortcuts in Safari. I
used it to remap Cmd-L to "Google Search..." to better mimic Chrome.

file:///Applications/Safari.app/Contents/Resources/Shortcuts.html

------
arohner
My real problem is that M-w is too close to ⌘-w, especially when I have meta
mapped to ⌘ on my external keyboard.

I would really love to have a consistent set of shortcuts across emacs and
everything else I use.

------
edge17
I think the worst design decision was putting the print button next to the
save button. I've definitely sent code files in excess of 50k lines to some
unknown printer before by accident.

~~~
bruceboughton
That's poetic justice for having code files in excess of 50k lines.

~~~
edge17
Haha tell me about it. I've seen functions in excess of 30k lines.

------
dmaz
Chrome for Linux addresses this by using Ctrl+Shift+Q.

------
mcritz
This is like complaining that he keeps getting a spoonful of Cheerios up his
nose every morning because his nostrils are too close to his mouth.

~~~
blahedo
...and then posting a nice hack to relocate the nostrils to the top of the
head during Cheerios-eating time and sidestep the spoon-nostril problem
entirely. So it's not so bad.

------
duopixel
I'm willing to bet the author is either A) not a touch typist or B) Comes from
Windows/Linux. It's not the author's fault, of course, but it has been around
since 1984 and it's unlikely to change. The 'native' way to type commands on a
Mac is using your thumb to press Command and your pinky to press Q, or your
ring finger to press W.

It feels awfully weird pressing Q with your ring finger.

Window/Linux users use the pinky to press ctrl, taking your hand out of the
usual touch typing position, and thus making it more prone to mistakes.

~~~
dedward
I agree with your premise but not your conclusion. I'm a touch-typist - but
many touch typists in the computer age end up not always using classical touch
typing methods - after all,the traditional typewriter keyboard didn't have an
alt or cmd or ctrl key, right?

I use the thumb on left-cmd and a ring finger on either q or w (never thought
about it... maybe I use the pinky sometimes) - and I don't recall ever making
a mistake, although I suspect that may partially be because I primarily use
safari, and it warns me if I try to close multiple tabs or a single tab/window
with form data filled out.

And everyone should hopefully be mapping capslock to ctrl.... that just saves
all kinds of hassle down the road.

------
hexley
I could have sworn somebody made a SIMBL plugin years ago to provide
confirmation for Cmd-Q in all apps...or am I just going crazy?

------
linhat
well, this is not really a solution to his problem, but instead intended as an
informational bit. i am actually using a dvorak(-programmers) layout. then the
Q and W keys are quite far apart, with the Q key right above the left ⌘ key,
and W right above the right ⌘ key, a really handy addition to an (already)
awesome layout.

------
foenix
I just did this to a blog entry after reading your post. I should have written
in out in vim like I normally do.

------
shawnwall
you just changed one of the consistent features of all os x applications, how
to close applications and close windows/tabs of applications.

for some reason i always use the finger motion/press of thumb on left ⌘-key +
index finger on q key to quit things and i've never experienced the ⌘q ⌘w
issue.

~~~
jerf
I think squishtech's first clue that they changed one of the consistent
features of all OSX applications was when they went to the control panel and
changed the feature.

I think it'll be OK.

------
kuroir
It is indeed to close, but it's not worth it modify it since it's a system
wide standard.

------
hippich
Can you close tab with Ctrl-W in Mac (like in Ubuntu and Win)? If so - just
use it. Ctrl-Q do not quit browser =)

------
jlees
Good thing we're fixing this!

------
invertedlambda
Yes, yes and yes.

------
gmatty
A F#$#@$* men

------
onk
o is too close to 0.

------
stretchwithme
very true.

------
drivebyacct2
I will give plenty of karma to anyone who can tell me an easy way of doing
something even remotely similar in Linux. I'd love it.

~~~
lukeschlather
On Ubuntu the first thing I do with a new install is rebind quit to Command W.
(System -> preferences -> keyboard shortcuts.)

If you're using Firefox you just make sure browser.warnOnQuit is set to True
(out of the box, it's set to true.)

As far as Chromium goes, near as I can tell ctrl-Q does not work at all, which
is something Firefox would do well to imitate.

~~~
ins0mniac
Chromium uses Shift+Ctrl+Q to exit.

