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Keyboard force quit?

idkew

idkew

macrumors 68020
Original poster
Sep 26, 2001
2,111
1
where the concrete to dirt ratio is better
Sometimes I have an app freeze up. I highly doubt the system has been effected, but for whatever reason, the dock is not accessable, and the key command does not bring the force quit window to front (although I would bet it is there in the background). Is there a keyboard shortcut to just kill the process you are using? If not, there should be one, it would be a timesaver.
 
me too

this is exactly what happened to me yesterday....

in another thread someone suggested restarting the finder when X is acting goofy....which isn't what I ended up doing....but for the future I figure why not try it out? what's the worst that could happen?
 
sometime, OSX is a little busy with the foollish app and you must wait 10 or 15 sec with the ALt-click on the faulty-application icon in the dock before a positive reaction...
or launch process viewier, select the faulty app, double-clic and kill

z:)
 
Speaking of Keyboards....

What happened to the power button on the keyboard? When I got my new G4, it was one of the first things I noticed. This is just a personal preference, but its a lot more convenient to just hit the power button, and then hit enter, than to use the mouse to shut down.

Does anyone know if there is a keyboard compatible with the G4s that still has this feature? And am I the only one that misses being able to do this?
 
Re: Speaking of Keyboards....

Originally posted by prechrchet
What happened to the power button on the keyboard? When I got my new G4, it was one of the first things I noticed. This is just a personal preference, but its a lot more convenient to just hit the power button, and then hit enter, than to use the mouse to shut down.

Does anyone know if there is a keyboard compatible with the G4s that still has this feature? And am I the only one that misses being able to do this?
Click to expand...

Apple does nto believe in turning off your computer ever anymore. I agree. Just put it to sleep. That is why there is no longer a power botton, there is not need for it. Just let your computer goto sleep and never turn it off anymore.

I hear at one point that the eject acted like the power button with some key combination though.....

My Ti only is off... well, i can think of maybe 2 days in its whole like it has been off. Besides, waking is much faster than booting.

-idkew
 
it should be possible for you to force quit an app without having to see the window. Once you've pressed the keys (alt+apple+esc), just hit return twice. It should work...
 
Force Quit.

BTW-- I edited this so as not to confuse anyone. As britboy pointed out, I had the key combo wrong.

If you use the standard key combo to bring up the force quit window (aapl-opt-esc), you'll notice that the current application is the selected app in the force quit window.

Also note that return's function in this window is to kill the selected app. Finally note that there is a confirmation window that comes up after you select force quit. This confirmation window uses return as the confirm key and esc as the cancel key.

So in order to kill the current app, just hit 'aapl-opt-esc' then 'return' then 'return'. This will (respectively) bring up the force quit window with the current app selected, request that the current app be forced to quit, confirm that you want to force quit the app.

Voila.

This is especially handy if you are in a game and the game locks up in full screen mode. You often can't access menus and the force quit window gets lost on the screen.

Again the key stroke order is:

apple-option-escape (apple=command; all pressed at once)
return
return

Matthew
 
command-option-escape

you may want to check that site again....

i wouldn't know about the german thing though, i'm english
 
Just a note...

If you are playing a "full screen game" like Alice, Quake etc... If it freezes (Alice likes to do this quite a lot of times), just hold command+option(alt)+esc for about 5 secs. The full screen game will force quit and you will return to the finder... I still need to test if this works with full screen apps (like Bryce), but I think it the trick works when Mac OS X's kernel sees that an OpenGL process is open... This was quite convenient compared to Mac OS 9 (remember those days... if you pushed the three keys the dialogue would appear, but you couldn't see the mouse!)

The dock takes forever to force quit apps... The contextual menu takes ages, just use the 3 finger keyboard salute instead. At least Apple is on the right track, with 10.0.4 it would take "forever" to display the menu when an app was misbehaving... Apple has reduced that time by half and I hope they reduce it by another half by the time we see 10.2.
 
Originally posted by britboy
command-option-escape

you may want to check that site again....

i wouldn't know about the german thing though, i'm english
Click to expand...

Doh! You're right.

*command*-option-esc.

I read that as control three times. My apologies to all. There should be a message icon for embarrassment...

Britboy--Don't you live in Germany? That's what your location says...

Matthew
 
i'm only here in germany for one year as part of my university degree, and then i'll be returning to england.
 
Re: Speaking of Keyboards....

Originally posted by prechrchet
What happened to the power button on the keyboard? When I got my new G4, it was one of the first things I noticed. This is just a personal preference, but its a lot more convenient to just hit the power button, and then hit enter, than to use the mouse to shut down.

Does anyone know if there is a keyboard compatible with the G4s that still has this feature? And am I the only one that misses being able to do this?
Click to expand...

Yup. :cool: The new Apple keyboard still does all that:

Command + Option + Control + Eject = Shut Down
Control + Command + Eject = Restart
Command + Option + Eject = Sleep

I haven't been able to power up using the eject key, but I'm also using an old G4 400 PCI, so that may be why. Anyone else care to confirm the eject key doubling as a power key?
 
No for me the Eject key doens't act as a power key... But this is a real usefull trick you posted... thanks

All three work on my Quicksilver.
 
adding to hemingray's tips, if you hold down the "CTRL" key with the "EJECT" key at the same time, that familiar little message appears with the four options ready for you.
 
Thanks again guys... I always had wondered if I could only get that dialogue from my iBooks powerbutton or my old iMac.
 
the option+Apple+esc key combo won't work to restore a pesky dock. the easiest way is to open up the terminal and type:

ps aux | less

find the entry that says something about the dock under description. Then look at that entries pid number (process id)

once you have the pid for the dock press "q" to end the less session

type "kill" and whatever the pid was for the dock.

This works for any application in osx or any unix. its great for when classic crashes but doesn't completely go away.
 
Or even easier, provided that the finder is still functioning...

Go to apps> utlities > Process viewer. At the top of the panel that appears there is a search panel. Click it and type in Dock. Then double click the dock and click "Force Quit". After that the dock will automatically reload.
 
Or even easier, provided that the finder is still functioning...

Go to apps> utlities > Process viewer. At the top of the panel that appears there is a search panel. Click it and type in Dock. Then double click the dock and click "Force Quit". After that the dock will automatically reload.
 
Originally posted by mymemory
After reading all this, why should I get OSX? is the same crap but a new version.
Click to expand...

Not even close to the same old crap. You should thank your lucky stars that force quit works so well in OS X.

The fact of the matter is that there are always going to be crappy programs out there that crash. Developers are always going to make mistakes. Having a rock solid OS to run on and a way to kill misbehaving apps is a necessity in this less than perfect world in which we live.

Force quit hasn't *ever* hurt my system. It really is a blessing.

Matthew
 
exactly.

Reason for getting OS X comes in the form of 3 words.

USER FRIENDLY UNIX
 
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