Closing applications/windows

P

peterthistle10

Registered
When I click the little red button at the top left of an application's window (firefox, iTunes etc.) the window disappears but it doesn't actually close the application, which remains in the dock.

Can I set it so that clicking that red button actually closes the whole application?
 
Nope -- the correct (and only) way to quit a program is to select "Quit" from the "File" menu or to press Command-Q.

Just because you have no document windows open doesn't always mean you're done with the program. On some applications, like the "System Preferences" application that only ever have one main document window, clicking the red button does in fact quit the application -- but it's rare, and not a practice I recommend 3rd-party developers get in the habit of doing... the application should stay open even in the absense of any document windows.
 
Remember that in Windows, every application has a menu, so clicking on the X does close out of the application.

However, since the menu is universal on the Mac and none of the Finder windows or application windows have menus, it wouldn't make sense to have the application close out especially if you have other windows that are open within that same program. It also makes sense not to make it that easy to quit out of an application especially if all you want to do is close out one project and open another. The computer would have to load it all back into memory, as opposed to just opening the file for use.
 
How can I quit all of my applications at once such as Mail, Safari, and iChat?

I often quit the application by command and Q (keyboard) for each one.

Thank you.


(Mac OS 10.4.5)
 
There isn't a single shortkut key combination you can use to simply quit all applications that are running, but if you perform a logout, it would be similar... all applications would quit and you would be returned to the login screen.
 
Quitting applications is a holdover from a bygone era when we could run only one application at a time. There is no need to quit your applications now. An application not in use behaves perfectly fine idling in the background. It is ready to go when you click its Dock icon.
 
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