That isn't how windows apps work. Even if you believe its better, even if you are correct working different than other apps on the same platform is confusing.
What do you mean? That is how many (most?) Windows apps work:
* Before you start them, an icon for them is somewhere (possibly several somewheres) in your Start Menu. You can also (usually) start them from the actual .EXE file, which you can find with the file Explorer, or even from the command line. After you have started the app, it gets an icon on the task bar. (Let's disregard, for the purposes of this discussion, the option to set up a permanent icon on the taskbar, i.e. one that's present even before the app is running, to start it running from, for those of us who can't be bothered to use the Start Menu.)
* Now that the app is running, it gets an icon on the task bar. If you open several documents in the app, it usually gets several icons; one per document. Depending on which icon in the task bar you click, the app brings the corresponding document to the foreground of your screen. Start closing some documents, and the icons go away. In the end you're down to a single icon on the task bar again.
* Close the last open document, and some apps go fully away: No window on your screen, no icon on the task bar. Others, though, don't do that -- an "empty" window remains on-screen, and the lone icon on the task bar usually changes its caption from "document name" or "document name - app name" to just "app name". Minimize this window, and the icon on the task bar remains.
Ergo, when you close the last document, the app "lives" on the task bar. Q.E.D.
(Sure, not all apps, but so many of them I think it may be the majority nowadays. Certainly the most used ones: Microsoft Office, for instance, behaves this way.)
> Even if you believe its better,
I don't have much of an opinion; I was just answering a question by stating a fact.
> even if you are correct working different than other apps on the same platform is confusing.
A) But it's not "different than other apps"; this is how many / most apps work nowadays.
B) Microsoft has apparently been betting for a decade or two now that it won't be too confusing for a majority of their users, and they show no sign of being about to change it, so I'd guess haven't had too many complaints about it being confusing.
There is the question of whether in a multi document interface to show an empty window when the last document is closed and the question of whether to keep the application running when its last window closes on a single document interface as was the topic of the original discussion.
The majority of multiple document applications on windows choose to close their application when the last item is closed rather than displaying an empty window but all or virtually all choose to die when their last window or tray icon dies.
You said
> On the task bar.
No app on windows displays an indicator on the task bar for an application that has no windows. Doing so would be broken.
In a multi document window like this browser window there is a clear delineation between closing a document by clicking the x on the tabs interface and closing the window by clicking the x on the window. On a single document interface like say a document app as per the original discussion there is only one action in the evident interface the x on the window which ought to have a predictable result.
If one wanted instead reuse the window one would do File->Open or File->New or some such. One may also particularly use File->close on some such resulting in any empty window but this would be awfully odd given that the only way to reuse the window effectively would be to thereafter follow up with file->open or file->new.
The current behavior on windows of closing the window when the last document in a multiple document interface is closed and closing the app when the last window is closed is both standard and appropriate for the windows platform.
> > > Without a global menu where does the app live when the last document closes? [Again, my emphasis -- CRC]
The document-handling apps I have here on my work PC consist mainly of Microsoft Office 2016. Of those, at least Word, Excel, and PowerPoint all behave as I said: When you close the last document, the window reverts to an empty state, ready for you to open another or create a new document. AFAIK this is how they have behaved since Microsoft abandoned the MDI some decades ago, and still do in newer versions. I think (but am not sure) that this is also how other applications, like those in the LibreOffice suite, behave.
Sure, that window doesn't automagically minimize itself to the task bar, but at least I usually minimize it at that point -- don't you; who wants an empty window cluttering up their screen when they don't use it? Anyway, even if you don't minimize it, unless you immediately open or create another document, you presumably switch to another application, and then perhaps another and another, so after a while it's hidden behind other windows anyway -- all you see of it is its task bar icon.
So when you want to switch back to the app, unless you belong to the alt-tab faction, you click its task bar icon to bring it to the foreground again. Even I, who do belong to that (smallish and ever-shrinking, I think) group, often do that, because it's a visible and predictable place to find it. Ergo: When the last document closes, the application "lives" on the task bar.
> The current behavior on windows of closing the window when the last document in a multiple document interface is closed and closing the app when the last window is closed is both standard and appropriate for the windows platform.
On the first, I agree for modern "tabbed" windows; disagree if we're talking about the traditional Multiple Document Interface model ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiple-document_interface ). On the second, yes, of course, but I didn't know that was what we were talking about, because that wasn't what you said.
