Close vs. Minimize; What's The Difference?

Close does just that...gone.

Minimize puts it down in the doc...right side - there if you need it.

With several images open in different windows in an image editing app, as an example, you might wish to close one or more for whatever reason. Again, gone. But the app is still running, of course.

Minimize that same image and you can bring it back.

Some people stack them and then cycle thru.

Some people use multiple screens and keep literally dozens of windows open at once.

The point is that different users have different workflows and the OS tries to accommodate what are interpreted as the most common. See Apple's "Human Interface Guidelines" (link) for more detail than you most likely want.

I mean, would it create enormous havoc among all Mac users if this behavior was changed?

Yes!
Suppose I am editing a document in, say, TextEdit. I finish, I save and close the document. Now I want to create a new document. But (hypothetically), TextEdit quit when I closed the last document. Now I have to find TextEdit and relaunch it. I was just using it! I wasn't finished with it! Why would anyone think it a good idea to quit the application before I am finished with it?

I haven't used Windows enough to know whether Microsoft got it "right" in the Windows context, but Mac OS is a different environment. Quitting a document-oriented application just because the window is closed makes no sense at all in the Mac environment. (Applications that have no reason to be open in the absence of a window generally do close as a side effect of closing the window. Calculator, for example.) Apple got it right here.

Minimizing a window simply puts it in the Dock. A minimized unsaved document remains an unsaved document. A minimized web page remains rendered. If you want to return to a closed web page, you will have to reload it. If you want to return to a closed document, you will have to reopen the file (assuming you saved it).

It hasn't changed at all. Any application that can have more than one window will continue to run when a window is closed, even if that is the only window currently open, while an application that can have one and only one window will quit when that window is closed. Thus iPhoto has but the one window, so when that window is closed the application quits. However iTunes can have several windows open (although you might not have ever noticed this before), so closing the window does not quit the application. The one everyone is probably familiar with is System Preferences--each preference pane opens in the one window, replacing the the previously displayed pane. So when you close the window System Preferences quits.

I know Windows users are used to their way, but I'm not convinced even they really understand. I've watched my sis-in-law quit Photoshop by the perfectly natural impulse to click the close button when she finished working on an image, then promptly open another image, which means she has to wait while Photoshop relaunches. Fortunately my brother built her a really fast machine.... And she has ALWAYS been a Windows user, not forced from a Mac to a Windows machine.
Francine


Francine
Schwieder

This doesn't reflect my experience. When you "close" a file in many programs (like photoshop for example) it simply clears your workspace and detaches the file you were working on from the application. The application itself stays open. You quit or exit the program to get rid of it.

Minimizing just makes the window smaller or it disappears and you need to expand it again to use it.

It isn't just document oriented applications - as a test, I tried several different apps (four of them, two from Apple and two third party, but none of them document oriented) and none of them "quit" - they only closed the currently open window, but the app was still running. And, Aperture does not even give you the red button option, the only two options available are "quit" from the file menu or the minimize button. I've never encountered any app that will "quit" by simply using the close button.

I do understand what's being said here, but also think it's probably confusing for a Windows switcher.

And I keep wondering why the heck Word just quit because I closed a window when I sit at a Windows Box. 😉

Regards

TD

Mike Osborn wrote:
I'm not at my Mac just now, so I can't say for sure, but I think both iPhoto and iTunes quit when the Close box is clicked.

I just tried both - iPhoto did quit (I hadn't noticed that because I never use it), but iTunes did not (I rarely use that one).

I tried iMovie 06 (HD) and that one does NOT quit (whereas the new version does); neither does iDVD 07 - but, all the other iLife apps with newer/updated versions, do. So, maybe Apple is changing some of the behaviour at least on the iLife apps? I've never noticed it because I don't use most of those (except iMovie HD and iDVD) and none of the other apps I have will quit when hitting the close button. I agree it looks like a lack of consistency, and if I have some spare time and some problem that needs attention, I will ask Apple about this.

I thought the rule of thumb is "Can you do anything with this app with no windows?" If yes, then it doesn't quit. So, iTunes can keep playing, Word can create a new file, Photoshop and open a file etc. If "No" then it quits. Hence iPhoto and System Preferences go when the window is closed.

Regards

TD

btw: you can have more than one Window in iPhoto. Note the Events: Open in New WIndow comamnd.

+(At the risk of saying so, this is something that Microsoft got right).+

I must disagree.

And I'll leave it at that..... you already have enough explanations.

Thank you Francine - learned something new (again) - the level of knowledge on these boards never ceases to amaze me!