Sidemenu not closing after item is selected when using split-pane

Ionic Framework ionic-v3
1

I am using ion-split-pane in a way that keeps the sidemenu underneath the header.
It seems to work fine except for that without a tweak, the sidemenu does not close after an item is selected.

The tweak that makes it work is calling this.menuCtrl.close(); within the openPage function.

So while it does work, I am wondering if there is a reason anyone can think of why this is not automatic (closing the menu), when the app.html is structured as the following:

<ion-split-pane (ionChange)="updateTitles()">
<ion-header>
    <ion-navbar>
        <button class="menuToggle" ion-button menuToggle>
            <ion-icon name="menu"></ion-icon>
        </button>
    </ion-navbar>
</ion-header>
<ion-menu [content]="content">
    <ion-content scrollbar-y-auto scrollbar-x-auto>
        <ion-list>
            <ion-item detail-push *ngFor="let page of pages" (click)="openPage(page)">
                {{ page.title }}
            </ion-item>
        </ion-list>
    </ion-content>
</ion-menu>
<!-- main navigation -->
<ion-nav [root]="rootPage" #content swipeBackEnabled="false" main></ion-nav>
3

@shepard set the auto-hide attribute to true, that will resolve this issue. This is too late reply i guess. But it may help others. Thankyou