Why disable the minimize button?

Question

Is there any good UX justification for disabling the minimize button, but not the maximize or close buttons?

I notice that Eclipse (the IDE) has several dialogs that do this, and there are questions on other StackExchanges about how to achieve this behavior.

My question is, in what case would this be desirable? Why would a designer or developer not want the user to minimize their dialog (assuming a modal dialog, this would minimize the application itself as well).

In the Eclipse case, the "Run in Background" button gets the window out of the way, but I do not think this is a good substitute for disabling the minimize functionality.

I understand there might be good reasons for disabling the maximize button, and I believe handling the close button should be treated the same way as the "cancel" button.

But why disable the minimize button?

Answer 1

I think in this case disabling the minimise button is a good idea.

• "Run in background" does not minimise the window, it actually closes it, even if the operation keeps going in background. The window can be shown again by clicking somewhere bottom-right (if I remember correctly).
• The minimise button is not supposed to close a window, but just to minimise it on some sort of taskbar. Supposing it wasn't disabled, giving it the same meaning of "Run in background" (i.e. basically closing the window) would be inappropriate.
• On the other hand, allowing a standard minimise operation for that window is confusing, because then you have a third behaviour the meaning of which is uncertain (the window is shown: the operation runs in foreground; the window is not visible: the operation runs in background and I can make that window reappear by clicking somewhere; the window is minimised on the taskbar: huh?).

Anyway, it is a very unusual dialog, in a particular application that is designed for developers in the first place, developed around a technology (Java) that hardly looks 'native' in many cases. I wouldn't be surprised most UI choices are purely random or convenience-driven.

Answer 2

I find that you typically run into this scenario when the parent window that created the dialog window is waiting for information or workflow from the child window.

Therefore, if the user minimizes the child window, and can't find it for whatever reason, the entire app is basically stuck. This prevents them from minimizing it, and keeps it in their face.