Command+Tab

[SteveSawyer]

I'm a new Mac user after 30+ years on Windows. Adapting pretty well, but some things have me flummoxed. I'm also (obviously) new to this forum, so I'm uncertain as to what etiquette is, so unless it's Ok to put all of these questions into a single post, I'll be posting them individually. Let me know if I should not do this in the future.

So - the first question is about Command-Tab to switch between running apps. I understand that "closing" an app doesn't "quit" the app - that the app just becomes dormant so it can be quickly re-opened if needed, and that this state is indicated by a small black square under the app's icon in the Dock. But it isn't possible to switch to any of these "dormant" apps (if there is a more appropriate term, please advise) by using Command+Tab, yet these apps show up in the list that appears when invoking Command+Tab. This is really annoying, and I'm wondering if there is any way to change this behavior, or if I'm misunderstanding the behavior I'm seeing.

Thanks.

 

[Raz0rEdge]

Welcome to the Mac world.

One question per thread is good, having unrelated questions in a single thread will make for a very meandering conversation.

Most apps will not quit when the last window is closed, there are exceptions of course. And you are right that you can't switch to an app that doesn't have an active window open. If you know for a fact that you don't need an applicant hanging around (it isn't dormant per say and is taking up resources), you're better of quitting the app completely.

Where this becomes cumbersome is if you are constantly relaunching the app, say for example opening documents in Word. Having to constantly launch takes a lot of time, so in that case just double-clicking the document and have it appear instantly, close the window when done and move onto the next document makes more sense.

There is no setting to change this behavior, so it's a change to how you work.

 

[SteveSawyer]

Thanks, Ashwin. Is there a hotkey that can be invoked when closing an app to force it to quit, or is right-clicking the icon in the Dock and selecting "Quit..." the only option?

 

[Raz0rEdge]

All apps can be closed cleanly with CMD+q or File->Quit.

"Force quit" is thing on the Mac whereby you would forcibly kill an application that fails to cleanly quit. You'll see this by either getting a spinning rainbow on any open windows or the icon in the Dock and if you right-click on the icon in the Dock you'll see the words "Application not responding". In this situation, you'll have to launch Activity Monitor and you'll see the offending app highlighted in red. You can then select it and click the (x) button on top to nuke it. This should be a rare case though.

 

[Lifeisabeach]

A couple tips here. When using CMD-Tab to switch between apps, you can quit a highlighted app by pressing Q while still holding down the CMD key, unless it has an open dialogue box preventing that.

You can also "supercharge" the switcher using a 3rd party tool. LaunchBar is one that has been around for a long time and is still actively developed. I haven't used it in quite a while, but I did way back when OS X didn't even have an app switcher.

Also... you can invoke "Force Quit" by pressing Option-CMD-Q, but this should be avoided unless you can't quit an app by the normal means.