[macos] Keep calibre app open when clicking the close button?

[raghiid]

Is there any way to keep the app from quitting on mac when clicking the close button? Doesn't seem like normal macos behavior to me, and im quitting the app accidentally constantly.

[kovidgoyal]

preferences->look & feel->Enable system tray icon

[bestlem]

Originally Posted by kovidgoyal

preferences->look & feel->Enable system tray icon

No that does something rather different. That puts an icon in the menu bar. Well is tries to but with Calibres's overly long menu it does not show on the menu bar a- how do you open a new or existing library

What Apple HI Guidlines have said for the last 23 years and NeXT for the 10 yearsbefore that .

The red button oe CMD-W closes the current window but keeps that app open. CMD-Q or File->Quit closes the app.

Then an open command from Fiunder or terminal - or s File New/Open command from the menu would open a new window in Calibre's case corresponding to a new or existing library

[kovidgoyal]

shrug, that's best you are going to get. I am not jumping through more hoops just because apple likes to be stupidly different from every other OS on the planet. calibre is not a document viewing application. Those guidelines *might* make sense for an application that views multiple documents, it doesnt for calibre. Apple loves to think they know the right way to do everything and force everyone to conform.

[raghiid]

Originally Posted by kovidgoyal

preferences->look & feel->Enable system tray icon

This is exactly what I wanted. Thank you Kovid for all your work!

[odamizu]

Once you enable Enable system tray icon and close the window (click red button), how do you re-open the window to see your library? I must be missing something fundamental here

[theducks]

Originally Posted by odamizu

Once you enable Enable system tray icon and close the window (click red button), how do you re-open the window to see your library? I must be missing something fundamental here

(I don't use the tray feature) Did you right click the tray icon?

[odamizu]

Originally Posted by theducks

(I don't use the tray feature) Did you right click the tray icon?

If you mean the app icon in the macOS Dock, yes, I tried that and couldn't find anything to open the Library window.

[BetterRed]

Rather than the Dock, I thought the MacOS menu bar had something that approximates the Windows System Tray feature.

[odamizu]

Originally Posted by BetterRed

Rather than the Dock, I thought the MacOS menu bar had something that approximates the Windows System Tray feature.

Aha! Thanks! I am not familiar with Windows or what the Windows System Tray is or does. I originally looked to the app end of the Menu Bar (on the left end of the screen), where all the Calibre menu items appear. When it wasn't there, I looked to the Dock. Didn't occur to me to look at the system controls on the right end of the menu bar — though now I understand why the preference references "system tray". Interesting ...

[Quoth]

Originally Posted by BetterRed

Rather than the Dock, I thought the MacOS menu bar had something that approximates the Windows System Tray feature.

Indeed so has Linux and what it's called might vary by desktop.
I've two annoying programs on Linux (at least) that don't close when I click close. Only the window closes. Which is minimise without being in the "list of running programs" buttons. They are in the equivalent of the "task tray" as if network connections or BT manager. Obviously copying Mac (likely Telegram and Viber are on Mac). It's annoying having to remember to go to that icon and right click and Quit.

Has MacOS copied Android? Seems a bonkers idea that Close simply Minimises (like Android where nothing quits). It's a long time since I used a Mac. I think it used to be that when you clicked Close, it closed. When did that change? I know that Mac changed from OS9 to OS10 (X) which was native Apple to better BSD based import from NeXt and then OS updates numbered differently (About 2001, about same time as XP (NT 5.1), though MS did the opposite, Win2K = NT 5.0, Vista really approx NT 5.3)

I was aware that Calibre on Windows or Linux could copy how Telegram, Viber etc work, which makes some slight sense for a comms program. Maybe Signal and Zoom do it too, I forget, though X-Chat doesn't. I just checked and Steam also does it.

I think MacOS dev has lost the plot if ALL programs by default stay running when close is clicked. If at all, it should only apply to comms programs that do notification. Though I'd rather there was a config option for no Task Tray, instead either Minimise or Close.

It seems to me over last 20 years all GUIs getting poorer due to clueless people putting their aesthetics and workflow over well tested GUI-UX rules.
Android 11 a bigger mess than Android 4.
Vista/Win7, Win8, win10/win11 GUI worse than NT4.0, Win2000/XP, Win9x with less ability to customise theme.
Ubuntu drove users to plain Debian and Mint with Mate and other destktops with insane GUI decisions.

[bestlem]

Apple has not changed since 2000 ie beginning of OSX - and is the same as NeXT from 1990.

The red button closes the window - if the app is a simple one and can only have one window then the app closes if can have multiple windows then the app stays running so you can open a new window - clicking on the dock icon puts the app menu on the OSX menu bar. There are two short cuts cmd-w to close a window and cmd-q to quit the app.

Also close is not the same as minimise - close removes the window. The point of this is that you are running virtual memory - there is no need to quit things - they just get swapped out to disk and an inactive running app has minimal effect on the rest, but if you click on it it responds much quicker than if it had to rerun from the beginning.

Windows, macOS each have their own way of doing things and Unix based on X11 has multiple possible desktops some of which copy Windows or macOS others do their own thing.

Calibre I think has copied the Windows way which is not how macOS and many Linux work. If it followed Apple guidelines it would be an app that had a window for each library. Or if you think of it as only having one library at a time but needeing to remain running (e.g. for server) - then like Apple music it would have a windows menu that would reopen the closed Window.

[Quoth]

Never seen a UNIX or Linux where close doesn't close the application, unless it's an application that has a minimised icon in a panel/ runs in background and optionally does notifications. (Using UNIX since 1986, Linux since 1997). Of course there may be Linux or other Windowing desktops that behave like Mac OSX.

OSX (really Mac OS10 and later) was 2001 and a complete break from OS9 (much better) and it was based on NeXT, which was based on BSD.

All Windows + Menus + Icons + Mouse desktops are based on 1970s Xerox. Neither Apple or Microsoft innovated much on the GUI, despite stupid USA court cases.

if the app is a simple one and can only have one window then the app closes if can have multiple windows then the app stays running so you can open a new window

There is only one Main instance of Calibre, so the app should close.
OTOH there is some logic for Mac OS behaviour to keep the Application running if it's LO Writer or MS Word.

they just get swapped out to disk and an inactive running app has minimal effect on the rest, but if you click on it it responds much quicker than if it had to rerun from the beginning.

On a decent OS, something virtual memory not doing anything and minimised can be swapped to disk. But programs like Viber, Telegram, Signal or email can't be swapped to disk when there is no window, because they are doing something. Also there is almost no difference in performance loading a program from the normal file or restoring it from RAM swapped to disk. Actually if the program is installed on SSD and the swap is on an HDD, then restarting the application is many times faster! You are better with swap on an HDD than SSD due to wear! However 8G or more RAM on Linux the swap is almost never used. People used to disable swap even on XP that was using Flash/SSD and had enough RAM. Easier on NT 4.0 as it had PAE support so you could have more than the 4G RAM 32 bit XP was artificially limited to.

Also

but if you click on it it responds much quicker than if it had to rerun from the beginning.

This can be true on Linux or Windows even if the program is closed. Especially if some shared subsystem is used that isn't automatically loaded when you log in.

I don't know how Windows works now (I used to know) and not much about the details of how Linux works and know little of Mac OS X, but your explanations don't add up.

I know that NT (includes 3.1, 3.5. 3,51, 4.0 Win2K, XP, 2003, Vista, 7, 8, 10, 11 but not Win 1-3.x, Win9x, ME) used to use the program file as disk for virtual memory so that only data needed swapped to disk, thus you couldn't delete, update or move a running program. Given the mysterious shutdown and startup of Win10 after an update this may still be true.

Linux
Calibre load from SSD with 7,000 titles (many 2 formats) & FTS index on HDD on Linux: 6 seconds. First run.
Close Window and nothing in Processes.
Run Calibre a 2nd time:maybe less than 2 seconds.

[Quoth]

Also because Calibre is using SQLite database etc, you can't safely do anything with its folders/files if it's running.
Minimise to Task Tray or equivalent in Windows/Linux/Mac rather than really closing it is a bad idea.
Tools like rsync can fail to back it up or alternatively update it from a more recent backup made elsewhere if it's running but "hidden".

[bestlem]

Originally Posted by Quoth

Also because Calibre is using SQLite database etc, you can't safely do anything with its folders/files if it's running.
Minimise to Task Tray or equivalent in Windows/Linux/Mac rather than really closing it is a bad idea.
Tools like rsync can fail to back it up or alternatively update it from a more recent backup made elsewhere if it's running but "hidden".

True but calibre has a reason for doing this - it is to allow calibre to run as an OPDS server so other apps (possibly on other machines) can get books .

In practice I don't think that backups are much of a problem as calibre does not do much sql updating unless you tell it to do so ie editing meta data or adding a book.

Restores yes you need to shut all Calibre down - but then again this is all manual so you can shut it down - also would sqlite allow an open dn to be replaced?