Many people, especially those coming from a Windows environment, are not used to closing an application in Mac OS X. Application windows in Mac OS X usually have three buttons, red, yellow and green. The green button is a magnifying button that will expand a window to the size required to see all its information. The yellow button is a minimizing button that will minimize a window and place it in the dock when clicked. The red button closes a window when clicked. Here is where the confusion begins.
In Windows, when you want to quit out of an application, you click the red “X”. However, in Mac OS X, when you click the red circle, you are not quitting out of an application, you are merely closing that window. In Mac OS X, you can see what application is currently open by looking in the top left hand corner of the screen in the menu bar. Let’s say you are running Word. In the top left hand corner of the screen you will see “Word” right next to the Apple logo. However, if you click the red circle, you will still see “Word”. That is because you did not quit out of Word, you only closed the window you were working in. Another way to see if an application is still running is to look at your dock. Any application that is running will have a black arrow underneath it or a blue orb if you are using Leopard.
There are three main ways to quit out of an application in Mac OS X. You can click on the application name, such as “Word”, in the menu bar and select “Quit Word”, you can hold down the Apple key (command key) and Q, or you can right click (ctrl click) on the application’s icon in the dock and choose “Quit”.
I have seen several instances where people who have been using a Mac for years still think that clicking the red circle closes an application. It is very important to make sure that you quit out of your applications when you are not using them. By leaving several applications open, your computer will run slowly. Hopefully those of you who are new to the Mac will now have a better understanding of how applications work and how they’re different from Windows.
Filed under: Apple, Computers, Mac OS X, Microsoft, Technology | Tagged: Apple, Mac, Mac OS X, Windows, Word
True enough, my g5 imac crashed yesterday – maybe think about an article what to do then. (Unplug USB/Power/hold down button/find resolve) Thanks!
Then sometimes you have to use ‘ForceQuit’ or if your Mac is locked up, then hold the start button for five seconds to turn off the computer.
It’s pretty rare for a Mac to lock up completely, tho’ not of course unheard of. Generally try checking it isn’t only one application that’s the issue. The protected memory should mean that if one goes down the other apps should be unaffected. Force quit is a better option than shutting down.
Hard reset with the power button should only be done as a last resort and after doing so you should go into Disk Utility and run a repair disk permissions. If this finds any issues then run it again until it doesn’t.