Why Hide?

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I've been playing with some OS X settings including to do with Hide-ing applications.

My question is, why would I want to Hide an application, rather than either shutting its window and leaving the app running, or minimizing it? Am I missing something obvious, or is it a legacy feature from before the days of Expose and straightforward window management? Or is it to do with apps with multiple open windows?
 
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If you have lots of windows/apps open... and you want to get at a file, image, etc. on your desktop... That's what I use it for.
 
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If the question is Hide vs. Minimize, the answer is likely as simple as Dock space. If you Hide something that is already permanently on your Dock, it doesn't use up any more Dock space. If you minimize the same app, it adds the minimized window icon to the right side of the Dock. Hence, I tend to use Hiding just to keep things tidy.
 
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If the question is Hide vs. Minimize, the answer is likely as simple as Dock space. If you Hide something that is already permanently on your Dock, it doesn't use up any more Dock space. If you minimize the same app, it adds the minimized window icon to the right side of the Dock. Hence, I tend to use Hiding just to keep things tidy.

That is exactly why I hide vice minimize.
 
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Some apps can be hidden simple because you don't need to get at them. Whenever I start MAMP for web development I hide it so it doesn't get in the way.
 

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