MacOS Menubar Applet for showing spaces and switching spaces easily

Max Zhao

Last update: Dec 25, 2022

Related tags

Layout YabaiIndicator

Overview

Yabai Spaces Indicator

Menubar Applet showing all spaces with clickable buttons for switching spaces.

Requirements

Yabai is required to be running for the space switching and keeping spaces information in sync. The latter will also require adding the following signals to your .yabairc:

yabai -m signal --add event=mission_control_exit action='echo "refresh" | nc -U /tmp/yabai-indicator.socket' label=yindmc
yabai -m signal --add event=display_added action='echo "refresh" | nc -U /tmp/yabai-indicator.socket' label=yindda
yabai -m signal --add event=display_removed action='echo "refresh" | nc -U /tmp/yabai-indicator.socket' label=yinddr

Currently yabai is expected to reside in /usr/local/bin/yabai. Configurability might come at a later point.

How it works

Information on spaces and displays is directly taken from SkyLight API and space and display switches are handled through the NotificationCenter. Unfortunately that is not enough to ensure that the information on the space indicator is correct, as MissionControl can be used to Add/Delete/Reorder spaces. Fortunately MissionControl invocation can be caught via the Accessibility API, as is done by Yabai.

IPC with easy shell scripting is realized through a UNIX Domain Socket Server, that listens at /tmp/yabai-indicator.socket. Currently only a refresh message is implemented, which is used to allow yabai signals to modify our UI.

The Menubar Indicator uses SwiftUI and is integrated into the StatusBarItem as a Subview of the default button. While replacing the StatusBarItem view is being deprecated, this approach should be future-proof for now.

Comparison to similar applications

SpaceId has some additonal configurability for presentation and also allows showing all active spaces on all displays. Switching between spaces is not implemented. As of 12/2021 it does not utilize Acessibility API for catching MissionControl invocation. It does not have a dependency on Yabai.

WhichSpace shows the current active Space in a single indicator. Does not allow for showing all spaces or all visible spaces on multiple displays.

Comments

Where's the documentation?

Hi, I've looked everywhere in this project and I can't find the documentation. All I want to do is to change to compact mode, but I have no clue on how to do it.

opened by ggrangel 1
Changes to messaging API in 4.0.2
Yabai has slightly changed the messaging Interface since 4.0.2.

Reference:

https://github.com/koekeishiya/yabai/issues/1372 https://github.com/koekeishiya/yabai/issues/1377

[ ] Implement new interface

[ ] update minimal requirements

bug
opened by xiamaz 0
ability to show only spaces with windows on them

It would be convenient to show only spaces that have windows assigned to them, instead of showing all spaces, even when they are completely empty. For example, something like:

[2][4][5]

instead of [1][2][3][4][5]

(assuming spaces 1 and 3 do not have any windows on them)
enhancement

opened by edgimar 0
Any plans on adding a skdh indicator?

This project is amazing, thanks for sharing.

I'm wondering if you have plans (or a solution) on adding skdh into the menubar. It would be very helpful for knowing in what mode are you currently and would play nice with the indicator.

Thanks!
enhancement

opened by AlgusDark 1
Is it possible to arrange the icons according to the monitor layout?

Hi, thank you for the really useful tool. Just curious, would it be possible to arrange the icons according to the monitor layout? I keep my secondary display to the left but the icons for its spaces show up on the right.
enhancement

opened by restfuladi 0
Brew package

Firstly, thanks for this amazing app. Does exactly what I need and no more.

By any chance, have do done a brew package for this? I find anything with a quick search.
enhancement

opened by jackielii 1

Releases(0.3.2)

0.3.2(Nov 12, 2022)

Full Changelog: https://github.com/xiamaz/YabaiIndicator/compare/0.3.1...0.3.2
Source code(tar.gz)
Source code(zip)
YabaiIndicator-0.3.2.zip(614.16 KB)
0.3.1(Jan 15, 2022)
Bug fixes:

switching spaces will now always refresh display information

fix issue with non refreshed active space on non-focused display in multi-display setup

Source code(tar.gz)
Source code(zip)
YabaiIndicator0.3.1.zip(751.00 KB)
0.3.0(Jan 3, 2022)
implement window visualizations for individual spaces

C based UNIX socket client for faster Yabai communication (yabai path not needed anymore)

Source code(tar.gz)
Source code(zip)
YabaiIndicator0.3.0.zip(753.35 KB)
0.2.0(Jan 1, 2022)
Fixes:

reduce aliasing in Button borders

Features:

adding a preferences screen

configuration options for display separator and showing only visible spaces

yabai binary path can be changed and checked

Source code(tar.gz)
Source code(zip)
YabaiIndicator0.2.zip(723.36 KB)
0.1.0(Dec 29, 2021)
Initial release.

Features:

shows all spaces, including fullscreen

allows switching between all spaces via clicking on icons

displays are visually split with separator

Known limitations:

no configurability

yabai needs to reside in /usr/local/bin (hardcoded)

Currently this has only been tested on 11.6 Intel.
Source code(tar.gz)
Source code(zip)
YabaiIndicator-0.1.0.zip(700.62 KB)

MacOS Menubar Applet for showing spaces and switching spaces easily

Related tags

Overview

Yabai Spaces Indicator

Requirements

How it works

Comparison to similar applications

Comments

Where's the documentation?

Changes to messaging API in 4.0.2

ability to show only spaces with windows on them

Any plans on adding a skdh indicator?

Is it possible to arrange the icons according to the monitor layout?

Brew package

Releases(0.3.2)

0.3.2(Nov 12, 2022)

0.3.1(Jan 15, 2022)

0.3.0(Jan 3, 2022)

0.2.0(Jan 1, 2022)

0.1.0(Dec 29, 2021)

Owner

Max Zhao

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