Your opinion of course. Again, I DON’T want an extra layer of confirmation when hitting alt-f4 in MSFS. I wish I can downvote this thread.
What exactly are the consequences in a flight simulator? Do you die? I don’t think so. The worst case is to fly the mission again and have fun while doing so…or just don’t hit alt-f4 intentionally when you don’t want the simulator to close…problem solved.
Bottom line, the solution to the OP is not to add an extra layer of confirmation (way too much of that already), the solution is to NOT hit any two-key combinations that are not intended. The devs have other serious issues to fix and I hope they don’t waste time implementing a confirmation step to alt-f4.
I believe we’ve been feeding the trolls. It’s fun for a while, but for me, it’s time to move on.
My official vote for an exit confirmation? Yes, I think it’s appropriate as a default behavior. As in all these other debates, however, I think it would be nice to be able to turn it off if we want to, but then you run into the complicated interface issue with too many settings.
Sure, people who don’t agree with you are trolls right? A typical response by closed minded people. Yeah right. I’m moving on too…I hope Asobo just kills this thread and don’t look back.
My vote: Do NOT add a confirmation dialogue to alt-f4.
I am a Windows developer. I have no dog in this fight, but here is how it works at the lowest (Win32) level:
Alt-F4 results in a WM_CLOSE message being sent to the application’s main WNDPROC. The application can choose to not handle WM_CLOSE at all, in which case it will get delegated to DefWndProc, which will result in a WM_DESTROY message being sent back to the main WNDPROC. Most applications handle that by calling PostQuitMessage which will result in the message loop being exited and the application will generally terminate at that point. Alternatively, WM_CLOSE can be handled in the main WNDPROC and as long as DestroyWindow is not called, the application will not terminate. Typically, applications that don’t want to close without prompting the user will display a message box prompt in response to WM_CLOSE. If the user clicks Cancel (or otherwise makes the appropriate UI gesture) then the handler will just return 0, skipping the call to DestroyWindow and the application will continue to run.
Agreed, and it reinforces the fact that application developers can chose to confirm that the user wants to exit the application, or can abort the process or clean up (save data) before proceeding. Most IDEs abstract this to a higher level of messages like CanClose, etc.
Thank you for confirming the software development facts as all the knowledgeable folks have also stated. I just don’t understand people who take up an obviously flawed position, then stubbornly defend their castle of ignorance against onslaught of the armies of knowledge and experience.
There was another post that I wished I could vote “No” on. Then I thought for a second… The way to vote “no” on a wishlist item is to not vote ‘yes’. My RocketScience degree is due any day now in the mail. Also do not want this implemented. Historically, this alt-f4 was the thing to do when the boss walks in. Pretty much the quickest way, since we are well past the cntrl-c days.
Agree. We have some folks here fixated on how kill functions can be implemented but missing the point that the current implementation is intended by the devs and what the majority of us want. Just look at them arguing we are trolls because we disagree with the confirmation implementation. Sigh…
This isn’t either/or and there is no need to fight about it. This could easily be implemented such that you could set a config option “Prompt before closing on Alt-F4”. If the option is not set (default) then you get the original behavior which is to close without warning. If it is set, then you get prompted. Any wishlist item that involves a behavior change should take this approach–that way everybody can have the behavior that they want. At Microsoft, we even got to the point where we were implementing bug fixes in .NET runtime as being configurable, so if you needed the old behavior, you could still have it.
I think a game (a sim is a “game”) shouldn’t be mixed up with work applications when it comes to reasoning and argumentation.
A keyboard in a sim is often used blindly and there are many key combos in sims like FSX and P3D that are very similar to Alt+F4 (mainly engine controls) so many users might want to set up their MSFS similarily for example for the engines. Also, as the OP says, Alt+F1 is the default hotkey for his additional application. FSX for example has an immediate close command Ctrl+PAUSE, you absolutely never hit that combo accidentally. Alt+F4 however simply can happen, like ctrl+C which was the normal close command in FSX, together with Alt+F4, both showed a warning. I think a warning to acknowledge would make sense in this case.
In modern apps at least Alt+F4 is trapped by a “closing” type event. It is generally not possible, even now it seems, to know if someone pressed Alt+F4 or the little x on the top right of the window. So if you stop one from working you stop the other.
I would expect more of us want the app to just close that the number of us accidentally pressing Alt+F4 all the time so personally, I wouldn’t trap it in one of my app when closing the app does not lose data (like notepad).
It should also be noted that real pilots are very careful in what they press, pull and turn in the cockpit. Why not be a “pilot” and just watch what you press? I’d rather not have devs waste their time with this given we can’t even do a consistent ILS landing in the sim yet…ie much bigger fish to fry.
I use ALT+F4 all the time for a number of reasons. One of which is, when testing things out, and not actually flying, if I exit the sim in the normal way it writes one of those empty logs to your log book. ALT+F4 doesn’t generate an empty log.
The other reason is when the boss comes round, and you have to get out quick. Explaining how I’m provisioning a new Exchange server with a yoke & throttle is a little harder to explain, though.
I would need a similar confirmation on exit: my issue is that I’m using a lot the mouse right click to pan around the cockpit. Most of the time I’m not playing full screen to keep access to Little nav map or specific navigation web sites. Very often, my right click results in opening the menu on the top bar while the arrow is kept invisible. At that time, the game come to pause. It’s very anoying. I’m usualy able to click elsewhere to avoid and close this menu. Tonight, I missed and close the game clicking the invisible arrow at the wrong place.
With a confirmation question, I would’nt have lost my game. I was VFR flying tonight so it’s not too bad. But I would have been mad yesterday on my transatlantic flight (even if I often same the flight just in case).
There should be a confirmation asked on such an important action…
Have half the people on this thread NEVER USED A WINDOWS APPLICATION? It’s routine for applications to ask for confirmation on close to prevent loss of data, whether triggered via Alt+F4 or the X button on the window:
Notepad prompts you if you have unsaved data
Browsers prompt you if you have multiple tabs open (configurable by user) or a tab with unsaved data open (settable by the web app)
Coding IDEs either auto-save everything on close or prompt to save unsaved files on close
Office apps either auto-save everything on close or prompt to save unsaved files on close
This is computers 101 stuff, and everyone knows how they work if they’ve ever closed a program in the last 25 years.
Everyone knows this who has used a computer. Please stop feeding the trolls, flag their posts, and move on.
100% Correct (I am also a Windows programmer) and have lost count of the number of applications in which I have processed WM_CLOSE .
What is more of a concern, is that by Closing MSFS with ALT-F4, the app cannot write back data to its configuration files, so chances are, you loose data that has accumulated while MSFS was running … Like updates to your Flight Log.
I would personally vote for the “Warning to be added” … really, how many time are you ALT-F4’ong out of MSFS a day !!! (should be never, unless you make a typo )
A post above suggested that not saving the log when exiting via Alt+F4 was a positive, which I don’t necessarily disagree with.
However, it’s completely irrelevant to this discussion because simply adding a confirmation wouldn’t change anything in that respect. It could even warn you that closing in that manner will mean the log isn’t saved.
