Quit Terminal without quitting process? / Multiple simultaneous Firefox profiles

[Let's Sekuhara!]

Hi, I'd like to know how I can start a process via command line that is not a child of the app used to invoke the command.

For example if I open Terminal and enter:

/Applications/Firefox.app/Contents/MacOS/firefox -P "ProfileName"

It will run that Firefox profile, but only as long as I keep Terminal open.

Also tried creating an app bundle in AppleScript Editor, like so:

do shell script "/Applications/Firefox.app/Contents/MacOS/firefox -P \"ProfileName\""

This is less annoying, but still requires the launcher app to remain open alongside Firefox.

Any ideas?

[toptan]

I use nohup for stuff like that.

nohup /Applications/Firefox.app/Contents/MacOS/firefox -P "ProfileName"

The annoying thing is that you have to close terminal manually.

[Let's Sekuhara!]

Originally Posted by toptan

I use nohup for stuff like that.

nohup /Applications/Firefox.app/Contents/MacOS/firefox -P "ProfileName"

The annoying thing is that you have to close terminal manually.

Thank you!

I'm looking into whether I can (if I use the AppleScript approach) have the script quit itself after sending the shell script...

[Let's Sekuhara!]

There is a command

tell me to quit

that is supposed to make the running AppleScript quit itself.
But I just tried writing it into my app and it doesn't work.

[talmy]

Originally Posted by toptan

I use nohup for stuff like that.

nohup /Applications/Firefox.app/Contents/MacOS/firefox -P "ProfileName"

The annoying thing is that you have to close terminal manually.

You can also just put an ampersand (&) at the end of the line to run the process in the background. To close the terminal application you can execute killall Terminal assuming you have just one. Otherwise it's a fairly involved process -- get the process id of the bash shell, find it's parent process (a login process), and find the parent process of the login, which is the Terminal, which can then be killed.

[Let's Sekuhara!]

Originally Posted by talmy

You can also just put an ampersand (&) at the end of the line to run the process in the background. To close the terminal application you can execute killall Terminal assuming you have just one. Otherwise it's a fairly involved process -- get the process id of the bash shell, find it's parent process (a login process), and find the parent process of the login, which is the Terminal, which can then be killed.

If I want the process to run the same as a regular instance of Firefox (a process under my user, I suppose) then what would I type?

[talmy]

Well I just realized that when you close the Terminal application it kills the login and the copy of Firefox goes away (hence the suggestion to use nohup).
However if you run Firefox from an xterm window (which doesn't do a login) or from an Automator Shell Script then using & works fine and the bash shell can exit with no problems.

Also, you can run Firefox using the Open command: "open /Applications/Firefox.app &"

[Let's Sekuhara!]

Originally Posted by talmy

However if you run Firefox from an xterm window (which doesn't do a login) or from an Automator Shell Script then using & works fine and the bash shell can exit with no problems.

Problem is, then the Automator script app has to remain open for the duration of the session. And that's almost equally annoying as having to keep Terminal open.