Closing An Application By The Red Button

Evangelion-

you are so far off base on this one it's painful. It's pretty clear what you call 'semantics' are not semantics in any way- they're total differentiators.

Just ATTEMPT to grasp the concept of leaving apps open. When you try to argue that having to open apps is just as quick as pulling up an app that is already open, it's pretty clear your computer experience is limited.

MacAnkka said:

For all intents and purposes? Hardly. The menu bar is not there just for decoration, you know.

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While the menubar is part of the app, I don't see it as THE app. Now, minimizing _documents_ really does work on apps that can contain several documents inside the app (Photoshop, for example?), but as far as Safari (for example) is concerned, it doesn't work the same way. The single app-window displays all the content. We don't usually have several Safari-windows floating around displaying separate "documents".

If you really understand why it's important not to have applications close down when no documents are open, you should realize at least one pretty important thing you can do with a app with only a menu bar: you can open/create new documents. I'd call that pretty useful.

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I do understand that, thanks to RacerX's explanation. And as I think of it, I can see the point of it.

decksnap said:

Evangelion-

you are so far off base on this one it's painful.

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Uh, I did a while ago say that I understand the point when RacerX described it. But back when the only reason I was told was "it'll load faster" I didn't see the point. And the "semantics" I talked about was the things like "you do not restart the app since it's already running" when the user re-launches the app-window. I think it's safe to say that everyone understood what I was saying, yet someone felt compelled to hang on to that minor detail and start arguing it.

It's pretty clear what you call 'semantics' are not semantics in any way- they're total differentiators.

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the point with "semantics" is that is it worth getting your panties in a bunch over whether you are launching the app or simply launching a window. It was never relevant to the point I was making at the time.

Just ATTEMPT to grasp the concept of leaving apps open. When you try to argue that having to open apps is just as quick as pulling up an app that is already open, it's pretty clear your computer experience is limited.

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Um, dude, I already said that I see the point thanks to RacerX's description. I also said before that I don't see the point of the red X, when the only rationale I was told was that "the app will load faster", since most of the time the benefit offered by that was quite limited. But as RacerX offered me another insight to the workings of the Red button, I understood the rationale behind it, and I did state that fact earlier.

So just ATTEMPT to read what I said earlier. For example this:

It wasn't until next reply from RacerX which provided me with another piece of rationale, and it was something that actually made some sense.

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As to my "computing experience being limited".... Well, it's not. And yes, totally reloading an app is slower than merely reloading a window of already running app. But on most cases, the difference between the two is quite small (depending on the app of course), and for that reason the red button didn't make much sense to me when that was the only piece of rationale I was offered.

Evangelion said:

Liike I said: semantics. For all intents and purposes it is the app that is minimizing to the Dock. Yes the menubar is still there, but the app without it's content is not much of a use.

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What are you talking about. I can close the last Safari window and continue using Safari.

Evangelion said:

While the menubar is part of the app, I don't see it as THE app.

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You need to just completely forget about a window or menubar "being" the app. They're just ways to interface with the app.

Evangelion said:

Uh, I did a while ago say that I understand the point when RacerX described it. But back when the only reason I was told was "it'll load faster" I didn't see the point.

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It all comes down to being able to instantly begin working in an app. There is no unnecessary delay between documents just because I closed one before starting a new one.

The OS X behaviour would probably help me at work. I minimise loads of windows because I'm switching between apps a lot. I end up getting loads of buttons in my task bar. It's kind of messy and I've had to drag my task bar to double height. It would nicer if I could just shut the windows without quitting out of all the apps.

It's mainly useful for apps that are still doing thiings without a window - eg downloading, playing music, emails, instant messaging (in fact Windows keeps some of these open too in the system tray for this reason). It's less useful for some other apps but personally I like the consistency of behaviour in OS X.

(Well, except for iPhoto...)

I love that when you press the red button it only closes the window. so that way i can leave Mail running and stuff.

I'm still peeved about the - button minimizing and not collapsing like in the os9 days. Who the hell wants their dock even smaller?

I also don't like when Windows tries to Mac it up and leaves programs running even when you close the main window. I think firefox might do this, keep a footprint in the bg after it closes. I know iTunes and QT leave icons on the right hand side of the taskbar thing open. Probably why my girlfriend has to constantly restart her PC to free up virtual memory, because she can't close many of the invisible running apps! I sure as hell don't know how to.

iPhoto bugs me too.

If you want to equate the dock to windows think of the apps that stay open as apps in Window's task bar on the right. That bar's name escapes me.

EDIT: let's not forget of those apps that need to run in the bg - itunes for the Bonjor sharing, iChat for staying online, Safari in case you're downloading something with the download manager closed.

dpaanlka said:

What's the benefit of talking about this? This is the way it works on a Mac, and it isn't going to change. I understand, it is different from Windows. This may be strange and alien to some people, but you simply have to re-train yourself for this slight difference. I can think of lots of much worse things in Windows:

• What is the benefit of having a menu bar waste space in every single window?
• What is the benefit of having a program completely quit just because you closed the last window? Now I have to wait for this crap to re-launch?
• What is the benefit of maximizing every pointless window to take up the entire screen?
• What exactly is the benefit of Flip 3D??? Is there one? Is it not exactly the same as Alt-Tab? Does it serve any purpose at all?

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This is absolutely pathetic! I am a new mac book user, and I don't understand your mac book fans side.

THERE IS A MINIMIZE BUTTON FOR A REASON. If you want to reopen your program again, then you just minimize it instead of close it.

However if you are DONE with the program and you no longer want to use it, why should it sit in the background and hog memory and CPU cycles for no reason!!

I like my dock clean, and if I am not using an app I want it gone as well.

Since I use the mouse more than the keyboard I would appreciate closing an app with the RED "Close" button!!

As for the point of a menu bar, is if you use the mouse, then you have easy access to other options. Why do I have to move my mouse from one screen to another to click tools!

The point of maximizing every window, is that I would like to work in one specific window and don't need distractions from other apps. If I needed two windows simultaneously then (in windows) I would drag them to the side so that they take up exactly half of the window. And otherwise I can always resize them!

I am very lost on why this is backword and even more lost on why i dont HAVE THE OPTION to make the Red X close an app if I want it to. In windows many programs give you the option to allow the "X" to minimize the screen as well. Why not the opposite here?

How long did it take you to find this 3-year-old thread?

I wish Apple were more consistent with this - their own apps something quit when you hit the Red Button. Dictionary does this for example.

KirkL said:

I wish Apple were more consistent with this - their own apps something quit when you hit the Red Button. Dictionary does this for example.

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And, oddly, one of the examples where I would like the program to stay open in the background is iPhoto so that other computers on my network can share the photo library (iTunes will continue to share when running in the background). I generally keep mail, safari, iCal, iTunes and Skype open all the time. iCal connects to an external server to synchronise with other calendars, so this way it's always up to date, mail and Skype are always there to receive incoming messages, iTunes often wants to play music in the background and Safari has windows opened and closed enough that the small time saving mounts up. Some programs benefit from being open all the time, others do not, and I like the fact that I can chose to have some one way and others the other.

KirkL said:

I wish Apple were more consistent with this - their own apps something quit when you hit the Red Button.

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I'm sure this is answered above, but maybe you didn't take the time to read all previous posts either. There is a consistency to how it works. Applications that cannot have more than one window open at a time will Quit when the red button is clicked. And you can figure out the rest of the story. . .

TheAnswer said:

Another option you have is keeping the app open until you need to quit it (until you run out of room in RAM, for example), then hold down Command apple, hit Tab to select the app you want to quit, then hit the Q key. You can repeat the Tab and Q sequences multiple times as long as you keep the Command apple key pressed down.

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unfortunatelly this annoying GraphicConverter X which i did not even ask for, will not disappear. Can‘t shut down the computer!

Cristina19 said:

unfortunatelly this annoying GraphicConverter X which i did not even ask for, will not disappear. Can‘t shut down the computer!

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Does that mean, CMD+Q or Menu Bar > GraphicConverter > Quit does not work?

What Mac OS X version do you use?

And with "GraphicConverter X" do you mean the application from LemkeSoft?