Closing apps

Snow Leopard.

When I'm closing an app, rather than use the "Quit <app>" from the menu bar I'll often right-click the dock icon and quit from there. Especially if the app's window has disappeared behind another in the foreground!

Is there any downside to doing it this way as, although any relevant "Save changes?" dialogs come up, count-down boxes don't?

(Obviously, "Force Quit" on a bombed app is a different matter.)

Never seen a countdown box on a normal Quit command, only Save prompts where appropriate.

I'd be very surprised if there were. As you get the "Save changes?" dialog the application is obviously intercepting the close message and doing the appropriate housekeeping. As you say, "Force Quit" is another matter. I'm actually surprised to see that option - it really shouldn't be necessary except in extreme circumstance.

I think the Windows method of only providing such an option if the application fails to close in a timely manner is the better one. (Yes, I know there are other ways to force a Windows application to close, but it's not a part of the default UI.)

In reply to a post by ian_c:

Never seen a countdown box on a normal Quit command, only Save prompts where appropriate.

Depends on the app- most don't, Opera does, and one or two others I've got I think... but can't remember which!

As you say, "Force Quit" is another matter. I'm actually surprised to see that option - it really shouldn't be necessary except in extreme circumstance.

It's just a kill -9. Perfectly standard in Unix.

I'm well aware of that. All OSes provide the option to force kill a process somehow. But I am still of the opinion that it has no place in the default UI which is aimed at the more naive user. It is much more user-friendly to try to close an application gracefully and only present the SIGKILL option if that fails.

Just my opinion.

In reply to a post by AnotherExPipex:

I am still of the opinion that it has no place in the default UI

Depends what you mean by "default UI". It only appears if the normal Quit fails, or if the Activity Monitor is reporting "Application not responding".

edit- in my experience

Edited by billford (Wed 21-Jul-10 12:26:17)

Huh? So if a process hangs (which they sometimes do, on all systems) the user should have no recovery until the OS deems it OK? Very Windows thinking that.

Kill -9 kills only the specific process and is quite safe to use under the Force Quit menu because that only lists running applications, not any system processes. It is quick and convenient when Firefox an application stops responding and I don't have to wait for the OS to give me permission.

I have never met a Mac user who uses it in anything other than an emergency (and most of them don't even know it is there).

Haven't fired up Ubuntu for a while, but I imagine it has much the same functionality.

Depends what you mean by "default UI".

It's under the Apple menu.

In reply to a post by ian_c:

It's under the Apple menu.

So it is... never noticed that before