Re: Whatsapp On Pc Windows 8
Katja Gains
The bizzare thing that happened is that, even after I closed Whatsapp (it was not visible anymore neither on the task bar nor on the tray icon area), Whatsapp kept running on the background and displaying notifications of new messages arriving on my whatsapp on the screen!
How can I force Whatsapp to be closed completely when I close it? Certainly that raises the concern of how many other apps are running on the background after being closed? I'm talking here, obviously, of explicit apps that should work only when opened by the user and displayed on the screen. I'm not talking about normal background processes of apps used to improve performance.
A background process to optimize performance is completely different of an app fully running and receiving messages after being closed. It's like closing Outlook Email and keep receiving notifications that a new Email arrived even though the app was closed. That didn't happen with outlook. but it's a good analogy. That behaviour from Whatsapp is unacceptable!
Settings>Apps>Installed apps>"scroll down to whatsapp">"click on 3 dots">Advanced options>Back ground apps permissions> "take your pick from always, optimised, and never. Probably 'never' in your case">Runs at log in>"you can toggle this on/off if you do/don't want it to automatically kick off at start"
@NeetuKahlon I would say you told me everything I needed to know, but the only issue here is that "never" was already selected for background permission for Whatsapp. I'm certain I didn't follow this path suggested by you before, so if I changed that background behaviour, it was done by other means. Anyway, I appreciate your help and believe that to be the solution. If I keep seeing notifications when I close Whatsapp, I'll let you guys know. I just need to enable Whatsapp notifications again in Windows.
Yes, I have. The program window closes, but when you check the running processes, Whatsapp is still running. And if someone sends a message, it pops up... that is intentional I suppose, but an option to actually shut it all down is missing.
While that works with every other program, whatsapp desktop does not close completely with that shortcut, it only closes the window, four other processes stay open. It does however close as expected, if I do File -> Quit.
No, that's definitely not a client bug. It sounds like bad behavior of the window manager - whether or not it is a WM "bug" depends on whether the WM authors intended for it to be so badly behaved or not.
WMs generally use the Mod4 (aka "Windows" or "Super" button) for bindings. Occasionally some other modifiers are bound by the WM, but binding Ctrl-anything sounds like a bad idea for a WM. Most clients expect to be able to handle Ctrl-key combinations themselves.
As far as I understand from my own programming with Qt, a "close event" should implement whatever is necessary to do when the window (through whatever means) is closed. And my assumption here is, that whatsapp-desktop doesn't have this implemented.
I don't disagree regarding quitting and closing not being the same. But I don't have Ctrl+Q mapped to "terminate application", but to "close window", which is exactly the same as mapping Alt+F4 to that event.
Graphical "applications" are "clients" to the "display server". What a client does if you close one of its windows is completely up to the client and its implementation. Apparently WhatsApp follows an SDI model and therefore does not terminate if you close one of its windows. That this has not happened with random other clients you've been using in the past is meaningless.
I agree and understand this. And it was also my assumption; after all, whatsapp-desktop may have been designed to stay open without a window, so that messages can be received even when the user decided he just doesn't want the window open.
There are many de-facto standards. `Ctrl-Q` is a common key for quitting a program. This is both reflected by and reinforced by some toolkits (e.g. Qt) using it as a default for many applications. If you write a Qt program, you certainly can chose not to use Ctrl-Q for "quit", you could use Ctrl-H if you wanted, or Ctrl-Shift-Space-F3-Y if you want to appeal to emacs users But Ctrl-Q is a de-facto standard client / application bound key. This is why it is a bad idea for a window manager to bind that key as it will result in clients never detecting the key press.
For very similar reasons, clients (i.e. applications) generally do not bind Mod4 key combinations. There certainly are exceptions, but it is generally expected that Mod4 key combinations are for WMs and Ctrl key combinations are for clients (as are most Alt/Shift combinations unless they are paired with Mod4).
So, in short, you certianly may use a non-convential key binding scheme for your WM. But if you do, you really can't expect all programs to behave nicely with it. The fact that some do is just dumb luck.
Using the mod4 key (usually the "Windows" key if I understand correctly) for WM key bindings is certainly the way to go. As a matter of fact, I have set up most of the Enlightenment keybindings with the mod4 key. So if I want to stick with 'Q', I should probably configure mod4+Q to close windows.
I realized today that whatsapp-desktop actually stays open if you close the window via its "X" from the window, as in the X icon of the window bar. So this just confirms that the idea of the whatsapp-desktop developers was to keep whatsapp running in the background, so that you can receive messages even if the window is closed.
Is it correct then, that the XDestroyWindow event is actually the same as clicking the X in the window title bar? If so... then isn't it true that by binding Ctrl+Q to XDestroyWindow only has the disadvantage that any client's Ctrl+Q key mappings are not being triggered? I mean... after all, all I am trying to do is close a window with a shortcut rather than having to use the mouse and click that X in the window title bar.
Yes. And this is precisely the problem you are concerned about in this thread. Ctrl-Q when bound by the client generally means "quit", and you've stated that when you use Whatsapp's Quit menu entry it does indeed fully shut down.
I do want a window to close, not quit an application... for example, when using firefox, the Quit command from the file menu (or the shortcut Ctrl+Q, if it wasn't reconfigured as in my case), would close all firefox windows, e.g. quit firefox entirely. That is not what I would want. I may have two firefox windows open, but just want to close one of those windows.
Open WhatsApp on your phone, tap on Menu, then WhatsApp Web. That will show you all your WhatsApp web active sessions with last active time. All you need to do is to tap on Log out from all computer. That will logout from all the active sessions of your WhatsApp web from all the devices you were logged in.
Zorin Lite 16.2 XFCE
My mum now needs WhatsApp voice calls on her laptop.
WhatsApp Web does not do voice calls. And therefore anything that's just a wrapper around WhatsApp Web, like all the Linux "desktop clients" WhatsDesk, WhatsApp-for-linux, Ferdi/Franz, Rambox etc cannot do voice calls either. (And 99.9% of what I find on the web about WhatsApp on Linux involves one of those web wrappers.)
So that leaves a few options that I'd like to get the forum users tips or experience on.
Guest Opinion: WhatsApp is among the most widely used platforms in the world, and most users stick to it because of its supposed strong security protocols and a strong focus on user privacy. However, is WhatsApp really as secure and privacy-friendly...
Thanks, Anbox looks interesting, a sort of Wine but for Android.
The instructions on installing kernel modules are doing my head in, but hopefully I can get through them eventually.
I'll report back with how it goes.
I'd love to get my mum using something FLOSS and secure like Jami, Jitsi etc... but that could be bad for the people she's communicating with. They're in China (the ones she's talking to in WeChat) and Hong Kong (where WhatsApp is still OK... for now).
Just having something like Jami on their phone (or Jitsi in their browser history) could get people into trouble there. And she doesn't want that, nor do I.
I know nothing about switching from X11 to Wayland, what that would involve or how that would affect everything else on this system. (But I suspect it would be major.)
I see a few comments about something called "Weston" to allow a "nested Wayland session" within X11. Again, I know nothing about making that work and whether I could realistically expect my mum to do it whenever she needs to use WhatsApp.
As for alternatives to WhatsApp, it would need to be something that wouldn't get a Chinese person in Hong Kong (and who often travels back to mainland China) into trouble just for having on their phone. Things like WeChat, Skype and Zoom are acceptable to the mainland authorities, WhatsApp is excusable for someone working In HK, but things like Signal are out of the question. Just having it on their phone could make that person a target for investigation/punishment.
Lower down the page they claim you can make "phone calls" but all other info on (and experience with) WhatsApp Web is that you can't make voice calls. I'll try it anyways.
CONFIRMED: Opera uses ordinary WhatsApp Web, no way to make voice calls.