Force quit stuck applications from the dock

Jun 09, '03 09:51:00AM

Contributed by: Anonymous

Today Safari locked up on me and I noticed something new, at least to me. Instead of bringing up the Force Quit window via the Apple Menu or usual key combinations I went to the Safari icon in the dock to see if I could still quit the application from there. Instead of the usual choice of Quit it listed Force Quit instead. Much quicker way to Force Quit than usual methods. I will have to wait until some other application hangs to see if this is specific to Safari.

By the way, when doing a search to see if this had been posted here I found one related submission, but that stated that the control key needed to be pressed before seeing the choice of Force Quit in the dock. For me the choice was just there without pressing any extra keys.

[robg adds: I believe this behavior has been in OS X since the beginning, though I'm not positive. Basically, if an application is no longer functioning, and the system knows it's not functioning (not always the case), then the dock's contextual menu will show Force Quit instead of Quit. You'll also see such applications listed in red if you hit Command-Option-Escape.]

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