￿￿However, software modules that several applications can use (such as editors) may run simultaneously in more than one application. The user may thus see the same feature being run in several different applications at the same time.

Opening and closing applications

Applications are typically opened using the Application shell, the menu containing all installed applications.

There may be other ways to open an application, such as:

￿￿Assigning a shortcut to an application into a softkey, to be used in Idle state.

￿￿Using a link in Pinboard (see section Pinboard).

￿￿Using a specific shortcut built in to another application.

When there is no instance of the opened application already running, a new process for the application is created. If the application is already running, opening the application means bringing the existing application process on top. In case of a link that points to a specific state in an application, the existing application is interrupted and forced into the target state. See section Multitasking for more information on this.

The user can close applications in the following ways:

￿￿Using the right softkey, which goes backwards in the application hierarchy (Back) and finally exits the application (Exit).

￿￿Using the Exit function in the Options menu.

Closing an application means that the processes associated with it in the working memory are terminated.

Application processes can also be terminated by the system, for example when the user powers down the device.

Multitasking

The Series 60 UI style allows multitasking, that is, working with more than one application simultaneously. To accomplish this, an application can be left running when switching to another application, and it is possible to swap between running applications and interact with them.

To open another application without terminating the current one, the user can press the Applications key to go directly into the Application shell, and select the other application from there. The first application process then remains running in the background while the user is interacting with the second application.

It is possible to swap between two or more running applications by using the Application shell.

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Nokia Series 60 manual Opening and closing applications, Multitasking