[John F. Smith]

whenever i use firefox there is a hidden window that appears when i use expose, and I don't like it at all... how do I get rid of that window? this is an emergency

[CharlesS]

Seriously, an emergency? Why on earth would that be urgent?

[wataru]

It's not possible to get rid of it. It's there to keep the app from quitting when you close all the windows.

[Truepop]

use camino. about the same rendering engine (if not the same I can't remember if firebird has any tweaks to how a page renders) and in cocoa without that window to keep the app alive. and personally a better looking interface.

[Chuckit]

I think maybe this is what you're looking for: Dictionary.com/emergency.

Incidentally, did anyone else imagine this thread was going to be something along the lines of, "Help! FireFox locked up and now my boss is going to find out I was looking at Russian porn!"

[nooon]

^^
hehehe.

[ryju]

Originally posted by Chuckit:
Incidentally, did anyone else imagine this thread was going to be something along the lines of, "Help! FireFox locked up and now my boss is going to find out I was looking at Russian porn!"

That's exactly what I thought the problem was, because the same thing happened to me!

[Spheric Harlot]

Originally posted by ryju:
That's exactly what I thought the problem was, because the same thing happened to me!

So, did you get fired?

[Sod Off Sadr]

you can't. It's part of mozilla/firefox on the mac.

Solution: quit the app.

[tooki]

Originally posted by wataru:
It's not possible to get rid of it. It's there to keep the app from quitting when you close all the windows.

Applications don't need windows to stay alive. There are plenty of apps that never have windows.

tooki

[wataru]

Originally posted by tooki:
Applications don't need windows to stay alive. There are plenty of apps that never have windows.

tooki

Hey, I didn't make that up. I heard it somewhere else, from someone much better informed than I.

Apparently Firefox (and Mozilla? Camino?) is special in its need for this window because it's cross-platform. On every platform except OS X it quits when the last window is closed, so to make it more Mac-like they added that hidden window. I guess it would take more work to do it in a more elegant way.

[Chuckit]

Originally posted by tooki:
Applications don't need windows to stay alive. There are plenty of apps that never have windows.

According to Millennium in this thread, that's a limitation of XUL.

[John F. Smith]

I CANNOT have that little window appearing whenever I activate exposé. I can't tell you why i need to close it, because it's a secret. But all you need to know is that the little hidden window must NOT appear the next time I use exposé, or else.. please help me figure out how to make it go away

[thePurpleGiant]

John: the way to get rid of it is to use a different program, as everyone else has said. Use Camino instead, it is quite similar to Firefox and uses the same rendering engine, but without the hidden window. Problem solved.

[wataru]

You're either a troll or just very stupid. It is not possible to get rid of that window. Switch to a different browser if you must.

[Chuckit]

Write a program that hooks into the window server and forces that window to close. Or download the Firefox source and fix whatever issue they have in the UI code that forced them to use this workaround.

Seriously, a useless window in Firefox will not cause any damage. If you don't want to see the window, don't use Firefox or don't use Exposé. Those are your options. And I don't see why you expect people to bend over backwards to help with such a patently ridiculous request involving some big, mysterious "secret."

[John F. Smith]

I would switch to camino but i like the grey, windows-3.1-esque buttons that firefox uses.

[thePurpleGiant]

Originally posted by John F. Smith:
I would switch to camino but i like the grey, windows-3.1-esque buttons that firefox uses.

[tooki]

Originally posted by wataru:
Hey, I didn't make that up. I heard it somewhere else, from someone much better informed than I.

Apparently Firefox (and Mozilla? Camino?) is special in its need for this window because it's cross-platform. On every platform except OS X it quits when the last window is closed, so to make it more Mac-like they added that hidden window. I guess it would take more work to do it in a more elegant way.

I know for a fact that DOS, Windows, and UNIX all provide for completely windowless apps: on DOS, they were called TSR's (terminate and stay resident), on UNIX they're called daemons (I don't know the current Windows lingo). On Mac OS 9, we called them "faceless background applications". Regardless, I do not believe any relevant operating system requires a window to be present. If the app is coded such that closing the last window causes the app to quit... well, that's a limitation of the app, not the OS.

tooki

[ryju]

Originally posted by Spheric Harlot:
So, did you get fired?

Turns out he's into that sorta thing. :relieved:

[wataru]

Originally posted by tooki:
I know for a fact that DOS, Windows, and UNIX all provide for completely windowless apps: on DOS, they were called TSR's (terminate and stay resident), on UNIX they're called daemons (I don't know the current Windows lingo). On Mac OS 9, we called them "faceless background applications". Regardless, I do not believe any relevant operating system requires a window to be present. If the app is coded such that closing the last window causes the app to quit... well, that's a limitation of the app, not the OS.

tooki

I didn't say it was a limitation of the OS. In fact I specifically said that it's due to Firefox being a cross-platform app, and that there's probably a better way to keep it open with no windows, but that it might have been more difficult for them to do it that way.

[ambush]

Originally posted by wataru:
Hey, I didn't make that up. I heard it somewhere else, from someone much better informed than I.

Apparently Firefox (and Mozilla? Camino?) is special in its need for this window because it's cross-platform. On every platform except OS X it quits when the last window is closed, so to make it more Mac-like they added that hidden window. I guess it would take more work to do it in a more elegant way.

Perfect definition of "ugly hack".

[jasong]

Hmm . . . no follow-up from John F. Smith. I wonder if the boogie man came through the open Exposé window and ate him . . .

-- Jason

[CharlesS]

Originally posted by jasong:
Hmm . . . no follow-up from John F. Smith. I wonder if the boogie man came through the open Exposé window and ate him . . .

-- Jason

He had to flee to South Africa to escape it.

[tooki]

Originally posted by wataru:
Jeez, what is with people's reading comprehension these days?

I understood damned well what you wrote, dude. I was just emphasizing that it's NOT some OS limitation, but rather sloppy coding on Mozilla's part.

tooki

[wataru]

Originally posted by tooki:
I understood damned well what you wrote, dude. I was just emphasizing that it's NOT some OS limitation, but rather sloppy coding on Mozilla's part.

tooki

My apologies.

[Anubis IV]

John, aren't you the one that was asking how to make the cursor completely transparent over at the GUI board (presumably to pull a prank on someone else)? Sounds like you're trying to pull some stunt...don't see why any of us should help you...

[Fonzie]

Originally posted by Anubis IV:
John, aren't you the one that was asking how to make the cursor completely transparent over at the GUI board (presumably to pull a prank on someone else)? Sounds like you're trying to pull some stunt...don't see why any of us should help you...

I wouldn't call him John, more "the poster that was".

And that invisible cursor thing :S

So, John A. Smith, John B. Smith, John C. Smith, John D. Smith, John E. Smith and John F. Smith; What's your agenda?