4 ms·

The new iCloud support is interesting. I just edited the same iCloud document in TextEdit on two different machines, and I gotta say that is really damn cool.

The new iCloud support is interesting. I just edited the same iCloud document in TextEdit on two different machines, and I gotta say that is really damn cool. On the other hand, this new iCloud support sadly highlights another unrelated new feature in Lion, and not in a good way: Automatic Termination. You must use TextEdit to browse your iCloud documents, which is fine, but TextEdit keeps fucking disappearing on you because it has no open documents. Command+Tab away for a split second and it's gone, forcefully removed from your Dock and Command+Tab list. Automatic Termination is a feature that is meant to serve only the most novice of Windows users who are coming to OS X for the first, while it breaks an existing feature of the OS that has been fundamental to Mac OS X and NeXTSTEP for the last 23+ years. And it's not even an option. It is hugely frustrating and hugely disappointing.

jsz0 14y ago
I can't recall ever experiencing auto termination on Lion or Mountain Lion throughout the DP previews. My hardware is nothing fancy -- 2011 MBA /w 4GB of RAM. What are your specs? Do you often have memory hungry applications open? Most of mine are pretty modest. I'm just curious what would cause such different results. Auto termination should definitely be the last resort and most low memory footprint apps should be totally excluded.
- thought_alarm 14y ago
  Unfortunately, there two different and unrelated features called "Auto Termination", which only muddies the water. One feature aims to preserve system resources during low memory conditions in way that's completely invisible to the user. The other forcefully removes running applications from the Dock and Command-Tab list even though these apps remain running in the background. My frustration is with the latter feature.
  - ghshephard 14y ago
    To be clear though - Auto Termination of the latter form only occurs if no windows are active. It's basically saying, "If the user no longer has any active documents, and has moved this application to the background, then close it down." Siracusa does a good job describing his annoyance with this feature - and points out that while appropriate for IOS, which has the MRU task switcher, it doesn't work very well on OS X which lacks that metaphor.
    - thought_alarm 14y ago
      Yes, that's how it's supposed to work. But there are a bunch of edge cases usability-wise that it fails to handle. It is incredibly thoughtless to automatically quit an app the split second the user switches away from it, particularly if that user explicitly launched the app and has been using it for the last hour. It has always been perfectly acceptable to close all of your windows and then hit Command+N or Command+O to open a new document. And that's even more important now that you must use Command+O to browse your iCloud documents. But if something happens in between those steps, say an email comes in or you need to look something up, then it breaks in a really bad way. It also has nothing to do with iOS. iOS never tries to guess that you've finished working with an app, never prevents you from switching to an app, never removes an app icon from Springboard or task switcher. Indeed, this form of Auto Termination is the exact opposite of how iOS operates. It also has nothing to do with conserving resources. These "terminated" apps remain running the background, consuming memory. The OS simply prevents you from switching back to an app that you were previous using. It is strictly a Windows UI feature, and a very unwelcome one.
makecheck 14y ago
Automatic termination can be disabled by a low-level preference: defaults write NSGlobalDomain NSDisableAutomaticTermination -bool true It is one of the settings documented here: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4306573 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4306573

jsz0 14y ago

I can't recall ever experiencing auto termination on Lion or Mountain Lion throughout the DP previews. My hardware is nothing fancy -- 2011 MBA /w 4GB of RAM. What are your specs? Do you often have memory hungry applications open? Most of mine are pretty modest. I'm just curious what would cause such different results. Auto termination should definitely be the last resort and most low memory footprint apps should be totally excluded.

thought_alarm 14y ago
Unfortunately, there two different and unrelated features called "Auto Termination", which only muddies the water. One feature aims to preserve system resources during low memory conditions in way that's completely invisible to the user. The other forcefully removes running applications from the Dock and Command-Tab list even though these apps remain running in the background. My frustration is with the latter feature.
- ghshephard 14y ago
  To be clear though - Auto Termination of the latter form only occurs if no windows are active. It's basically saying, "If the user no longer has any active documents, and has moved this application to the background, then close it down." Siracusa does a good job describing his annoyance with this feature - and points out that while appropriate for IOS, which has the MRU task switcher, it doesn't work very well on OS X which lacks that metaphor.
  - thought_alarm 14y ago
    Yes, that's how it's supposed to work. But there are a bunch of edge cases usability-wise that it fails to handle. It is incredibly thoughtless to automatically quit an app the split second the user switches away from it, particularly if that user explicitly launched the app and has been using it for the last hour. It has always been perfectly acceptable to close all of your windows and then hit Command+N or Command+O to open a new document. And that's even more important now that you must use Command+O to browse your iCloud documents. But if something happens in between those steps, say an email comes in or you need to look something up, then it breaks in a really bad way. It also has nothing to do with iOS. iOS never tries to guess that you've finished working with an app, never prevents you from switching to an app, never removes an app icon from Springboard or task switcher. Indeed, this form of Auto Termination is the exact opposite of how iOS operates. It also has nothing to do with conserving resources. These "terminated" apps remain running the background, consuming memory. The OS simply prevents you from switching back to an app that you were previous using. It is strictly a Windows UI feature, and a very unwelcome one.

makecheck 14y ago

Automatic termination can be disabled by a low-level preference: defaults write NSGlobalDomain NSDisableAutomaticTermination -bool true It is one of the settings documented here: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4306573 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4306573