mac-app

Topics in the source

• Mac apps done right
• Opened at login: menu bar only
• One window
• The menu bar icon
• Every build is a version
• Prove it

The reference is open source: Cleaner, a Swift Mac app by Ciro Cesar Maciel that follows every rule below. When macOS opens the app at login, show only the menu bar icon: no window, no welcome screen, no permission prompt. When the person opens it from Finder or Spotlight, show the window. Detect a login launch at the top of applicationDidFinishLaunching, and guard every window shown at launch: The launch Apple Event carries the login-item mark (keyAELaunchedAsLogInItem) when macOS opened the app at login. SMAppService.mainApp does not always set it, so also count as login a launch while the login item is enabled and the Mac has been up for less than ten minutes. See LoginLaunch.swift in Cleaner. Settings, history and the rest are items in the window's sidebar, grouped under labels, not separate windows. No "About" window: the app name, version and author are already in the sidebar footer. Dialogs open inside the window. An 18 x 18 pt template image (isTemplate = true), so macOS colors it for light, dark and highlighted menu bars. A solid square with the app's letter cut out reads at that size; a detailed logo does not. Every installer you produce gets a new version number and repl

This is an excerpt. Refer to the complete source and its current requirements.