Does Selenium IDE 2.9.1 Firefox plugin need to be open for Test Scheduler to run jobs?

[seleniumusernewbie]

Hello,

I'm new to Selenium. I'm using Selenium IDE 2.9.1, which is a the Firefox plugin. I am on Firefox 52.0.1 (32-bit). I successfully setup a suite to test. Now I want to schedule it so it can run unattended. There is a feature called Test Scheduler which permits one to setup jobs to run suites. I setup one such job and it did run while I had Selenium IDE open. 

As an aside, I tried to update the time for the job to run, but it seems there could be a bug, as changes do not take effect. And the Advanced field does not take effect at all, whether it's a new job or an existing job. The value in that field is always blank, no matter what I do.

Now, what I noticed was that if Selenium IDE is closed, the job that's setup in the Selenium IDE Task scheduler does not run. What is the purpose of this Test Scheduler, then? I have to have the tool open all the time in order for a job to run??? I guess I had thought how it works is the Selenium IDE Firefox plugin is running silently in the background. So, even if I close the window, it's still running. As long as Firefox is open, the job should run. That was my expectation. Does the Selenium IDE plugin need to be open in order for jobs to run? And if so, why is that the case?

I can probably setup a Windows task scheduler to open Firefox and run Selenium. I've seen the other posts on that. But I had thought that Test Scheduler would take care of that, provided Firefox is already open.

Any help and clarification on any of the above would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you.