Feature Request: Mac - App continues to run in the background

[Lightsout565]

Mac Requests:

• Add Icon to Menu Bar; Have menu bar change number or highlight blue when a new message shows up (See Tweetbot as a prime example)

• Prevent Cmd+Q from fully quitting the app, allowing you to get notifications for new messages still (Similar to Evernote Helper)

• Cmd+W is broken; doesn't close the window.

[chrisknepper]

Thanks for reporting these! I think they are all do-able!

[mwjburton]

Cmd+H to hide the window would also be very useful. Thanks

[chrisknepper]

Hey @Lightsout565 , I have some questions about your requests for macOS:

1. For "Add Icon to Menu Bar," do you mean an icon in the top-right of the system menu bar (as in the attached screenshot)?
2. Most mac apps in my experience will fully quit with the Cmd+Q shortcut. I can definitely make it so the app remains open when the window is closed via the red button, but I want to be clear: you would also like the app to remain open (but have the window disappear) when Cmd+Q is pressed?
3. @mwjburton , Would you both be fine with Cmd+W and Cmd+H having the same behavior of closing (hiding) the window, or would you like more specific behavior for each?
   

[rjxeon]

Hey @chrisknepper great app, just switched over to Android from iOS and this was missing having messages on my Mac.

I agree with @Lightsout565 regards the Application staying open once you have hit the red button, would be a nice feature so it stays in the dock and I can still get Notifications. Everything else seems to run perfect for me. If you need anything new testing give me a shout.

[chrisknepper]

@rjxeon Thanks for the kind words! I have the app staying open when the window closes locally, just need to test it some more. I should tentatively release an update enabling this tonight.

[rjxeon]

@chrisknepper Great look forward to it!, any Chance of notification bubble counter on the dock icon? Hard to see if you missed a notification

[chrisknepper]

@rjxeon Yep, a bubble on the dock icon is coming tonight! The update will also enable Command+H as a shortcut to hide the app as requested by @mwjburton and in #16 .

@Lightsout565 , I would also like to continue improving keyboard shortcuts, but I'm not sure if Command+W is a common shortcut to close the window, nor if Command+Q should not entirely quit the app. Do you know of other macOS apps which behave that way? Just trying to get the best user experience for you all!

[Lightsout565]

@chrisknepper Cmd+W is the common user interaction for closing a window, without quitting the app entirely. Also, regarding your earlier post Cmd+H and Cmd+W are very different commands. Cmd+W closes the window and terminates any instance of the app window, where as Cmd+H hides the app window without destroying it. For example, say I have Spotify open and I'm on an artist page. When I press Cmd+H, it hides the window, but when I click the Spotify app icon in the dock I get the same window, in the same artist page I left it. If I Cmd+W that same window, the app is still running in the background but I have terminated and closed the app window. When I press the Spotify icon this time, it will load up a new Spotify window instance and take me to the homepage.

Some apps will have a setting in their preferences to override Cmd+Q. So when the app is running and a user presses Cmd+Q, it closes just the window without quitting the app. The user can still quit the app by right clicking the icon in the dock, or having an option in the menubar icon to quit the app. But this allows the app to stay open for incoming notifications. It's useful for apps that benefit from always being available (like Evernote Helper - see below)

Hope this helps, thanks again.

[kidbrax]

regarding the cmd-Q to quit i think it should follow best practices and fully quit the app but provide a separate helper if you want to keep something running in the background. in other words, i wouldn't want to quit the app only to find out that hasn't really quit unless i explicitly hose that.

Ha, I just read the note above.

[Lightsout565]

I agree with @kidbrax. Cmd+Q to quit is best practice and should be the default. Maybe having it as an option in settings as you mention to keep the app running in the background for those of us that want the app open all the time for incoming notifications.

I've actually added Android Messages as a login item for my account ("Hide" checkbox checked), so it's pretty much always running on my machine.

Anything I can do to replicate the iMessage system of always having SMS come through to my computer at all times.

[rjxeon]

@Lightsout565 I think most apps like Messages tend to be CMD + W is quit but keeps running in the background ( light still on in the dock ), and CMD + Q could then be a complete quit out of the app? Notification bubble is working great now though.

[kidbrax]

@rjxeon on Mac, cmd-W means close the current window, not sure about other platforms.

[chrisknepper]

Alrighty, so it sounds like Cmd+W to close the window but keep running should definitely make it in. Looking at Google Chrome, Cmd+W closes the current window but Chrome is also a multi-window application whereas this one really isn't. In v0.1.0, I added Cmd+H as a shortcut to hide the window without quitting the application since it was requested.

As long as Electron lets me have 2 keyboard shortcuts (which they call "Accelerators") that do the same thing, I'm all for it! Thanks again for your feedback all!

[chrisknepper]

Also, would you all prefer that this new shortcut live under a new File menu or Window menu in the Mac menu bar? I've seen apps do it under both, but I believe File is more common. Either way it's a new top-level menu.

[Lightsout565]

Also Cmd M to minimize is also very common. Usually found under a "Window" option along with File, Help, Etc

…

On Thu, Jun 28, 2018, 10:33 PM Chris Knepper ***@***.***> wrote: Also, would you all prefer that this new shortcut live under a new File menu or Window menu in the Mac menu bar? I've seen apps do it under both, but I believe File is more common. Either way it's a new top-level menu. [image: screen shot 2018-06-28 at 10 31 38 pm] <https://user-images.githubusercontent.com/4976096/42070191-40146842-7b23-11e8-8ef7-fda9279e163d.png> — You are receiving this because you were mentioned. Reply to this email directly, view it on GitHub <#8 (comment)>, or mute the thread <https://github.com/notifications/unsubscribe-auth/Amum8e26Wj5gNkwtugiGwL0U2-9bK1uvks5uBZHugaJpZM4U4a0l> .

[kidbrax]

@chrisknepper for cmd-q and cmd-h it should live under the main application menu, "Android Messages" but cmd-w should be under the File menu I believe. Thanks for adding these in, it's a great app!

[kidbrax]

Just downloaded v1 to try the cmd-h to hide. It doesn't seem to work correctly though. It hides the window but the app stays in front. It should hide the whole app and make the next app active.

[LastInLine]

@kidbrax is right, cmd-h hides the window but doesn't switch to the next app. Right now it's working kind of like cmd-m should except without the genie effect to the dock.

@chrisknepper I don't know if you ever got an answer to question 1 in comment 4 but yes, an icon there to show that it's running in the background would be ideal, along with some indicator of an unread message when one comes in.

[chrisknepper]

Everything in this should be covered by v0.3.0, with the exception of the "tray" icon highlighting when a notification comes in for macOS. I believe we should open another issue for that because the UX implications of that also apply to Windows and Linux.