Disable app auto quitting

Genius! Thanks a lot!

How did you discover that command, Lemmy? Any tricks for discovering other commands to revert other irritating Lion behaviour?

I basically used a trick by Lri over at StackExchange (who, I believe, was the first to find the defaults command for disabling elastic scrolling). See here:

http://apple.stackexchange.com/a/50092

Hmm... just found some additional strings when running the following command:

strings /System/Library/Frameworks/*.framework/Versions/*/* 2> /dev/null | grep -iE automatictermination | grep -v ' ' | sort | uniq

Wonder what NSDisableAutomaticTerminationAfterAccessibilityRequest means...

Thanks for the command line hacks on this issue - I will give them a try.

I posted this complaint in another thread on the issue, trying to explain to some ignorant fools why this feature is a bad idea:

"The main reason I hate this feature, apart from the fact I am used the need to user-quit, is efficiency. Why, you ask? Because I use various apps from time to time during my computer usage, and I want the apps to respond instantly (or almost) - why else have quad-core processors, 4 GB of RAM and SS drives? When apps auto-quit (e.g. Preview), I then later double-click an image or PDF and the icon sits there bouncing 4-5 times until the file opens. That is utter BS - when apps don't quit, they respond immediately when a user needs them.

This is why the Auto-Quit feature from Apple $uck$ big-time, and why it better get removed or as a minimum have a global user-selected preferens or command-line on/off hack (like forcing the /User/Library folder to reappear - I bet the same genius that came up with that "feature" also siggested auto-quitting apps!)."

Great!!!

My problem was with Message app. This app was supposed to work in background, right?

It quits as soon as I move to another app :-(

Horrible behaviour.

Thank´s to Lemmy for the solution! Perfect fit for all Mac users that get so bored by this autoquit "function" - haha, indeed it is no function for me...

I just wanted to add a few comments why it is important to have the user quit the app and not the system.

In general it is a "how to use a computer efficient" problem.

First of all if you work a lot with your Mac you have a lot of apps for all different kind of tasks. Most of the people don´t want to have all of them inside the dock as the icons than get smaller and smaller.

Thinking about a few workflows or daily tasks to do you will find autoquit a no feature.

It is a Windows like behaviour. I have to work with Windows at the office and find this totally strange and stupid.

Although I have used Excel and Word during the day I have to reopen it to create new documents if I have closed the last window. The more apps you use the more complicated it gets. You have to search for the app to reopen it instead of just going to it by Cmd-Tab. With autoquit off work is much easier. Have TextEdit opened without a document and need a new one? Just click on it in the Dock - done. Or go to it with Apple-Tab and press Apple-n. Klicked on it by accident? No problem: Close the new window. No question like "Do you want to save?" because there is nothing to save. Compare it to the Office stuff from MS... It will ask you any time althought you haven´t done any changes to the document. Why ask when I only want to look up something in a Excel sheet or Word doc?

The best thing to sort out this would be, in my point of opinion, an additional switch in applications for the autoquit function. And - no surprise - only where it makes sense.

I.e. it is totally useless for things like Skype, FaceTime, Mail, any kind of Webbrowser and a bunch of other apps.

What is it good for?

SystemPrefs i.e.

Hopefully Apple will think about why people like Macs and how they use them. Increasing the market share is not only a matter of marketing. It has also to do with the quality of the system, the integration in existing environments and it´s easy use and support. Why buy a Mac when it is as stupid as a Windows PC?

Hi Alex,

maybe my description or general statement was not that clear or missinterpreted.

I ment that on a Mac it´s much easier to learn and use new apps. Each has it´s app menu, file menu, edit menu, the same save and print dialog. That´s what I ment with using computers efficient (or is efficiently correct?).

If I have to find out how the hack things work for each app because all of the apps work different than it is an inefficient system for me.

I work with Mac´s since 1994 and never bought a Win PC simply because I hate the way they work - or better not work. For me the best system is still Snow Leo what runs perfect on my MBP.

This is so annoying I forgot why I needed Textedit open while researching an answer.

Will logout to test the snipit from Lemmy Caution.

Like others have said, its nice to have an app open when I want to jump back and forth. A GUI should be about reducing keystrokes and clicks.

Add the option to the preferences for the app if anything.

Not a bug, although it does bug.

Not a feature, although its suppose to be.