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Which Apps auto close when not in use?

paulsalter

paulsalter

macrumors 68000
Original poster
Aug 10, 2008
1,622
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UK
Not sure if that is the correct wording for it

for example

In Textedit if you close the document, the app is left running, but after a while (assume when the ram is needed for something else) the app auto gets closed

is there a list of which apps support this, or is this for all apple apps now
 
paulsalter said:
Not sure if that is the correct wording for it

for example

In Textedit if you close the document, the app is left running, but after a while (assume when the ram is needed for something else) the app auto gets closed

is there a list of which apps support this, or is this for all apple apps now
Click to expand...

It's called Automatic termination, and is only supported by apps that support autosave. It also will only happen when your not using the app, and it has no open windows.
 
Thanks

I am trying to get into the habit of closing docs instead of the app, but so far I can only get textedit to auto terminate

I have had Pages/Numbers open (without documents) for over 12 hours and they are still running
 
Wow, i had no idea that was even a feature of Lion. I'm surprised that the Apple software still does not implement this though, Steve claimed that all of the iWork and iLife Apps had already been updated to support lion when he gave his talk at the last WWDC.
 
Preview.app ... This is what it looks like when switching back to it after its process had been killed with open but hidden documents:

shot.png


Try running /System/Library/CoreServices/talagent -memory_pressure in the Terminal and see whether any application's process is killed.

TALAGENT(8) MAN PAGE said:
-memory_pressure

Simulates memory pressure, which may cause apps that support automatic termination to exit. This
does not actually allocate any memory.
Click to expand...
 
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Its looking like if an app supports it, when you close the app document, the app disappears from the dock

Preview, Textedit, QuickTime Player

Dont use iCal, but might give this a try if it does

AddressBook seems to closed immediately for me, hit MCD+W and its gone

I like this idea, CMD+W, then the system decides for itself when to terminate the app, shame iWork doesn't support this
 
Amberfool said:
When you say not visible, do you mean minimized or on another desktop, or what?
Click to expand...

I mean that the user hid the application. It possibly also works if all of the application's windows are on a different space, at least the developer documentation seems to indicate that. I've only ever seen it work when the application is hidden though.
 
iThinkergoiMac said:
Why? This will generally degrade performance and increase RAM usage and disk paging.
Click to expand...

keep been told on here and apple forum that this is how things should be done now, this is what the auto termination of apps is all about

the os will deal with closing apps if it needs to
 
There's nothing more annoying than having to remember which apps require you to quit the app and which apps only require you to close all open windows. I just quit the app no matter what, as I want at least some bit of consistency in this inconsistent OS.

By the way, the apps that auto-quit will quit as soon as you close all windows and click on another app or the desktop, as far as I can tell. They don't wait for RAM usage or whatever.
 
The problem is that we're in a transition period now. Ideally, every app would have supported "Automatic Termination" from the day Lion was released. In reality, it will take a while really for any 3rd party apps to support it. In the meantime, we can start to get used to the idea of app processes being automatically managed for us, but we can't really rely on the system to do so yet. It's all up to the developers now.


baryon said:
By the way, the apps that auto-quit will quit as soon as you close all windows and click on another app or the desktop, as far as I can tell. They don't wait for RAM usage or whatever.
Click to expand...

Some do. But the usual behavior is for the app to appear to quit, but having the system keep its process around so that it can be reused at a later time unless at some point the system resources can be better allocated for something else.

shot.png
 
TuffLuffJimmy said:
Not if OS X does its job.
Click to expand...

OS X can only do its job if the API handles are in the application in question. Right now, that is a very few applications.

iOS doesn't even do this correctly. If I have a lot of apps open, and then I try to run Infinity Blade, performance is bad. If I quit all the open apps, performance is good. Supposedly iOS4 does multitasking in such a way as to make that situation not possible, but it happens all the time.

I shouldn't need to rely on the OS to quit my applications for me. That really just encourages bad habits. Until Apple implements this feature better, you'll perform better by just quitting applications.

Not everything Apple tells you is actually true.
 
iThinkergoiMac said:
I shouldn't need to rely on the OS to quit my applications for me. That really just encourages bad habits. Until Apple implements this feature better, you'll perform better by just quitting applications.
Click to expand...

I do agree here, but quitting doesn't always do what you want

I use textedit to temporarily store things during the day, at the end of the day I want to ignore what I put in there

closing the document gives me an option if i want to keep it
closing the app remembers what I did (I don't want it to remember)

I would prefer to just close everything when i am finished with it, but this doesn't work as well for me in Lion as it did in SL
 
baryon said:
There's nothing more annoying than having to remember which apps require you to quit the app and which apps only require you to close all open windows. I just quit the app no matter what, as I want at least some bit of consistency in this inconsistent OS.
Click to expand...

Another approach would be to generally only close documents instead of apps, but use the CMD-Tab application switcher to do a bit of housekeeping from time to time, to quit currently unused apps that you know are taking up lots of RAM.
 
TuffLuffJimmy said:
I think you're reading a little too far into my post. :rolleyes: I never said the API was implemented well, it's not even implemented in many of Apple's current applications. Nor did I say the feature is a good idea.
Click to expand...

Hahaha, my bad. That comment was aimed more at paulsalter with regard to his comment about Apple telling him how things should be done. Just like Apple says their implementation of multitasking has little or no effect on battery life in iOS4. It does have a significant effect.
 
paulsalter said:
I do agree here, but quitting doesn't always do what you want

I use textedit to temporarily store things during the day, at the end of the day I want to ignore what I put in there

closing the document gives me an option if i want to keep it
closing the app remembers what I did (I don't want it to remember)

I would prefer to just close everything when i am finished with it, but this doesn't work as well for me in Lion as it did in SL
Click to expand...

Fully agree! I didn't know this was in Lion until this thread, but as soon as I saw the OP I was struck by the same sense of hatred as I have for this feature's evil twin autosave/versions. I mean far out, Lion decides which apps I want open and which not? I use TextEdit the same as what you say there, and while I've not encountered this happening yet, it is destined to piss me off :(.

How long until the OS decides which apps I want to open before I open them, replies to my emails before I read them, and clocks my fricking games? "What do you think you're doing Dave?" :eek:
 
MartiNZ said:
I mean far out, Lion decides which apps I want open and which not?
Click to expand...

You don't understand how it works. This feature will only quit applications not currently doing anything. If there's a document open, it won't quit it. It's not deciding anything, it's just quitting open, but not used, applications when needed.
 
iThinkergoiMac said:
If there's a document open, it won't quit it.
Click to expand...

Part of the confusion may be down to what you define as "it". On Lion, a currently "running" application may not have a process attached to it. But so what? The user should really only have to care about applications (or documents) not about processes. Certainly the system won't just quit an app that is still doing something or has (even invisible) windows open. But as long as inactive applications preserve their state (thanks to Resume), it should actually be fairly irrelevant what happens to their processes while you're working on something else.

Preview.app with hidden documents open, after simulating memory pressure:

sh2.png


I for one love this feature and am hoping for lots of developers to implement it as soon as possible.
 
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