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I respectfully disagree. The Apple docs suggest to app developers that when closing the last window, the app should be made to close automatically. This is alm

I respectfully disagree. The Apple docs suggest to app developers that when closing the last window, the app should be made to close automatically. This is almost certainly what the user wants, unless you have a reason to think otherwise. For example, as per my other comment, if I have restore tabs in my browser, I expect the tabs of the last open window to always be restored. Instead of this being a suggestion, it should be the default, and the developer should have to configure when they want the last window to NOT close the app. (Even Apple's Safari suffers from this!) Also, Win has a dock for "background" apps which are always open, accessible, but not in the toolbar of open apps. Apple has a menubar, that similarly allows docking of those apps that are open without a window. My rule of thumb - if you don't think the app belongs in the menu, you want it to close when the last window closes. And if Apple had a "minimize to menu" that might be useful.

bitigchi 5y ago
Where is it written? And if so, why do the most Apple applications that use multi-window setup do not behave as such, like Safari, TextEdit, Xcode, and many others? It only makes sense to close the application immediately when the red button is pressed if the application is designed for a single window, or if it's not a document based app. Like the Calculator.app. Keeping the application running when all windows are closed has huge performance benefits, allows opening another window much faster, and arguably one of the best aspects of macOS.
SllX 5y ago
This is entirely contrary to how the Macintosh has worked for decades which has also shaped user expectations, and closing the app entirely creates a performance penalty for document-oriented apps. Whenever Apple has experimented with doing it a little different, such as when they added sudden app termination to Lion, it has generally degraded the user experience by running contrary to expectations. I also second everything in bitigchi’s reply to you.

bitigchi 5y ago

Where is it written? And if so, why do the most Apple applications that use multi-window setup do not behave as such, like Safari, TextEdit, Xcode, and many others? It only makes sense to close the application immediately when the red button is pressed if the application is designed for a single window, or if it's not a document based app. Like the Calculator.app. Keeping the application running when all windows are closed has huge performance benefits, allows opening another window much faster, and arguably one of the best aspects of macOS.

SllX 5y ago

This is entirely contrary to how the Macintosh has worked for decades which has also shaped user expectations, and closing the app entirely creates a performance penalty for document-oriented apps. Whenever Apple has experimented with doing it a little different, such as when they added sudden app termination to Lion, it has generally degraded the user experience by running contrary to expectations. I also second everything in bitigchi’s reply to you.