weird behaviour when closing apps?

Luis Sequeira1 wrote:

None of these three applications Quicktime Player, Preview, TextEdit will quit by clicking the red dot.

I am very surprised by your saying that the dot under the icon goes away when you do that. Do other applications have the dot under them?

When you close that last window, say in Preview:

https://discussions.apple.com/content/attachment/709d5b6b-981c-451c-8d89-0967ba03f83f

do you no longer see that Preview is running - does the active application change to something else, or does it still show "Preview" next to the Apple symbol?

exactly, i'm confused too. those apps used to stay active after closing the window with the red dot. now they do appear to quit completely. the finder shows the previous app/panel that was previously open. as an example, i'll use text edit. i just closed it with the red dot.

see what i mean?

VikingOSX wrote:

Preview is particular vile because it can visually appear to have quit from the menu bar and dock, yet it is clinging to an open document in a background process that you could only discover from the Force Quit dialog

even after the document that was using preview is closed, then i close preview with the red dot, it still appears in force quit but the open indicator on the dock goes away. but if i quit preview by clicking and holding the icon until i get the "quit popup" then it no longer appears in the force quit panel.

hi luis,

thanks for the cmd+q suggestion. it does work fine. it quits those apps and after that they are no longer in the force quit panel. :) but that just raises another question in my mind. those apps used to stay active when closing their window by the red dot. now, when i click the red dot, the dock indicator goes away, but they are in the force quit panel. to me, it appears as though they are somewhere in between opened and closed. i'm thinking that one or two of the thousands and thousands of files that make up the macOS have gone AWOL. but i will say again that since it's not causing issues (except in my brain) i guess i just need to get used to it.

thanks barber lives 123,

thanks for the reply. at least you understand my issue properly, but:

restart, log out, log back in was the first thing i tried. still happens.

boot into safe mode was the second thing i tried. still happens.

it does appear system wide. i tried a test acct. still happens.

and, while i'm here, i already tried reset NVRAM or PRAM. reset SMC. still happens.

also, i have NO antivirus or any other such crap on my mac.

yes luis, i do understand that the red dot does not completely quit all apps. my issue is with these three apps specifically. when i close them with the red dot, the indicator dot under the icon on the dock goes away (telling me they are closed), and the menubar shows the app/window that was open before the affected apps were opened. it's not causing issues with the performance of my mac, it's just a little confusing. :)

in my etrecheck report i saw nothing wrong, but it is possible i may have missed something. so here it is.

and, just to add, i've been following the recommendations in Effective defenses against malware and other threats years before he even wrote the user tip. :)

thank you everyone for the help. since i haven't found a solution, i'm leaving this question open. but, since it's not affecting performance, nor affecting the reopening of the apps in question, i'll just keep getting used to quitting them by the "click and hold" method of quitting.

thanks again.