[btn]

> Also, the app quits when the last window is closed, which isn't how OS X apps are supposed to behave.

This is almost consistent with Apple's HIG: "In general, quit when users close the last open window in your app. [...] If users close the last remaining document window in a document-based app and switch to another app, it’s appropriate to quit the app" (emphasis added). [1]

[1]: https://developer.apple.com/library/mac/documentation/UserEx...

[nsxwolf]

That's odd. I don't think I've ever seen this behavior. I just tried it with Pages and the application remained open.

[needle0]

The behavior in question is actually very new, as it became part of the guidelines only starting with 10.7 Lion. As Lion brought forth a whole lot of similar behavioral changes (which often conflict with those of either Windows/Linux or older versions of OS X), very few apps have adapted to the new rules so far.

[akldfgj]

I think the new rules assume that apps are persisting any (invisible) state across quit/launch.

[bigiain]

iPhoto has done it forever. It still feels "wrong" to me though. I guess I understand the reasoning behind it, and iOS mostly works that way (at least as far as a normal user will notice), but so many Mac OS apps - both current and historical - have _not_ worked that way, so iPhoto always seems strange to me.

[misnome]

iPhoto is a single-window application - only one window is ever used. Such applications usually (and should) quit on closing the main window. Immediate examples I can think of are System Preferences, calculator, but there are many more examples

Anything that allows working with multiple documents should remain open even with no windows (or unless auto-killed).

[jarcoal]

Give it a try with TextEdit and you'll see the expected response.

[tuananh]

Cmd W closes the document without quitting TextEdit. just tested on lion.

Mac is document-based instead of application-based so closing document doesn't quit the app. it only does if multiple documents doesn't make sense to the application like System Preferences.

[nspragmatic]

You're doing it wrong.

This is the HIG quote from above:

> "In general, quit when users close the last open window in your app. [...] If users close the last remaining document window in a document-based app and switch to another app, it’s appropriate to quit the app" (emphasis added).

In TextEdit, close the last document and then _switch to another app_. You're missing the last step.

[tuananh]

did it again adding the last step (switching to other app), still there though - Lion 10.7.4

[wtallis]

The TextEdit behavior might actually be the OS silently closing an unused application that implements the necessary hooks for saving state and indicating when clean-up is required on termination. That behavior was introduced in 10.7, but IIRC, can be disabled by the user.

[mbreese]

Worked for me... Mountain Lion 10.8.1.

    1) Opened TextEdit
    2) Started a document
    3) Closed document (Cmd-W)
    4) Switched to Chrome
    5) *poof* TextEdit disappeared

[drivebyacct2]

It seems to be one of non-Mac users biggest complaints but I love it. I can close my Chrome windows and remove the clutter without having to pay the cost of having it start up again. It's a good-bad habit because then I go to Linux and Ctrl+W all my tabs and then hit Ctrl+T and realize my mistake.

[archangel_one]

The thing that confuses me the most about it is when I close the last window of an app, 95% of the screen shows the app beneath it but the menus are still for the app I just closed. I guess that's partly a crossover with the focus model as well, but it's just a bit alien to me. As you say, it's really a non-Mac user thing; I only use OSX 5% of the time at work so never really get used to it.

[vacri]

I really don't see much difference in clutter between minimising to the taskbar and having an icon on the dock.

[Lockyy]

It's odd to hit the x to close and the program actually just minimizing. Odder still was that when I hit minimize, by default, it minimized to a separate icon to the main application. I changed to it minimizing into the dock icon. But the inconsistent behavior of the x button means sometimes it and the _ button (I can't call these close and minimize on this system because that's not what they are anymore) have similar, if not identical, functionality.

[drivebyacct2]

Huh? I don't think you understand what I'm talking about...

[samuellb]

To prevent Firefox from closing, go to about:config and set browser.tabs.closeWindowWithLastTab to false. This is one of the first things I do when I (re)install a computer, I don't like the default behaviour either :)

[protolif]

Do you guys remember how unusable the previous version was? I mean, this feels like splitting hairs compared to that.