#1471 It's too easy to 'Esc' too far

[Chris Hills]

In Edit -> Options -> General, there is a "Close windows with ESC" checkbox. I find it useful to be able to close a comparison window by hitting Esc rather than Ctrl-F4 or clicking the close button. But far too many times I've accidentally closed an entire project by hitting Esc, and then it can take 5 minutes to open the project and scan the thousands of files again.

So please limit Esc to closing a comparison window and don't allow it to close an entire project or WinMerge itself. This could be a configurable option if you want to maintain backwards compatability.

[Kimmo Varis]

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This is subject and debate of tens of items already, and everybody seems to want ESC key to behave differently.

So I've simply decided I won't change the current behavior until we have clear idea how we really want it to behave. Lots of users are used to current behavior and changing it requires good and strong reasons.

Adding one or two advanced options for fine tuning the behavior could be one solution. But I don't want 10 options for just one key.

Or, then we should think how we can avoid these accidental closes. I think RFE item:
#1659693 Exit Warning?
http://winmerge.org/rfe/1659693
has a good idea.

[Hendrik de Goede]

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The options window could show something like the following (instead of 'Close windows with ESC'):

[ESC] key behaviour:
- Close file compare
- Close folder compare
- Exit WinMerge

All 3 with a checkbox, or 2 radio buttons (yes/no). That way all combinations are possible, and fully configurable by the user.

[Kimmo Varis]

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That really does not solve the problem - in general it is handy to close all windows with ESC. But the harm with closing folder compare window with lots of files is of course real.

There is quite a new feature request item about this:
#1820990 ESC to close File Compare - not Folder
http://winmerge.org/rfe/1820990

I just added one possible solution idea there.

And I'm closing this item as 'duplicate' of it.

[David P]

Please consider providing a Setting to show a close button on each tab.