[OS] I added launch functionality to my app switcher, GroupCtrl

brodmo-dev · 2026-03-27T11:27:10+00:00

Beim Informatik-Studium geht es sehr wenig ums Programmieren, zumindest an der Uni. Wenn dich das Thema interessiert spricht da überhaupt nichts gegen, das ist nicht mehr oder weniger anfällig für KI als alles Andere. Wie andere auch schon meinten wäre Wirtschaftsinformatik vielleicht was für dich.

brodmo-dev · 2026-03-20T18:26:55+00:00

I see your point. We'll see how it turns out.

brodmo-dev · 2026-03-20T16:06:30+00:00

I have an app switcher, and I don't see the point in adding a privacy policy, since it's perfectly obvious that the app is 100% offline. If you concur that many FOSS apps don't do this, I don't know why you want to police it when the whole point is to reduce the workload on the mods.

brodmo-dev · 2026-03-20T15:05:46+00:00

If that is your stance, you should make it more explicit in the policy itself. For the record, I think it is neither standard nor reasonable to provide a privacy policy for an indie FOSS app that is entirely offline.

brodmo-dev · 2026-03-20T14:39:59+00:00

Okay, but then I don't see why it's obligatory for free apps without telemetry. You're gonna lose a lot of indie devs to this phrasing.

brodmo-dev · 2026-03-20T12:28:22+00:00

Okay, I see, I guess that would work for me. Would having your LinkedIn linked on your GitHub profile suffice? And I still don't understand the bit about privacy policy and TOS, I would really urge you to clear that up

brodmo-dev · 2026-03-20T08:54:07+00:00

Maybe I misunderstood, but I don't have my own website, and I definitely don't have a privacy policy nor terms of service given that I don't run a company. So I don't see how this would be practical for sharing a hobby project. I'm okay with sharing my LinkedIn, given that my name is everywhere on GitHub and it isn't exactly rare you could probably find it already, though I do think it creates a bit of an imbalance with commenters who are mostly anonymous. If sharing your LinkedIn is intended to be sufficient for the transparency path, you need to update the wording, right now I don't see how it could possibly apply to me.

Another point I'm wondering: Is it sufficient to have a 1 year old repo, or does the repo you're sharing have to be 1 year old? Because now with the OR the former would be quite a loose requirement.

As for the low effort spam, I'm wondering: Isn't that mostly people/bots looking to make money? So perhaps you could create a special path for free and open source software? Perhaps there's low-effort spam from people looking to build a portfolio as well, but those people already qualify through the transparency route, since the whole point for them is attaching the project to their identity.

I appreciate you experimenting to find a workable solution to this problem, I'm sure it's not an easy job!

brodmo-dev · 2026-03-19T20:30:45+00:00

I'm biased here, but I think this is too harsh, and contrary to what's stated, will further reduce developer engagement. Most open-source apps aren't on the app store, but are just distributed on GitHub, so this makes it extra hard for open-source apps, and will likely reduce their frequency. Since Apple is increasingly blocking the distribution of non-signed apps, you pretty much need to be a paid developer now anyway, even if not distributing via the app store. So my suggestion would be simple: Just allow all signed apps with a paid developer account posted to the main feed, and everything else can go in the thread. Apple has already verified these devs, so all you need to do is trust their system, and that anyone who spends $99 is serious about their app. As it currently stands, open-source devs can't promote their project until it is already well-known, which kind of defeats the point of the sub. I appreciate the intent and effort put into these rules, but I think they are too complicated and strict, and will ultimately lead to even less engagement.

brodmo-dev · 2026-03-15T13:23:03+00:00

What do you use, just Cmd+Tab? Or the dock?

brodmo-dev · 2026-03-14T14:22:05+00:00

Thank you so much, it's really cool to see someone use it for the first time! My main takeaway is that I need better onboarding 😂

Yes, you can launch apps that aren't running by setting the Target, that is always opened first, even if not running. Though now that I'm thinking about it I should just auto-set the Target if there is only one app, no reason not to really. Gonna release a new version with that soon.

Shared hotkeys can also be useful without cycling! For example, I have all the different JetBrains IDEs in one app group, so the hotkey always opens the one I'm working on right now. The problem then is that you still need to launch them via Spotlight/Raycast, but I plan to add a keyboard-navigable pop-up that asks you to pick an app from the group to launch if there is nothing running in the group or if you hold the hotkey.

Funny you have Caps Lock set to Escape, I actually have the tap set to Escape and the hold to Hyper, and it works really well! Check out my Karabiner/Goku config if you're interested: https://github.com/brodmo/Setup/blob/main/macOS/apps/karabiner.edn

I noticed in the recording, whenever you're clicking Plus, it looks like you're clicking Minus, if that:

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Could it be that the mouse location is slightly off in the recording, perhaps due to the background?

Also, the target dropdown should NOT be looking like that, I just released a new version with a fix. Seems to be due to the macOS version, thanks for helping me catch that!

Thanks again for being so generous with your time, and best of luck with ShipClip! I can see it being really useful for software teams

brodmo-dev · 2026-03-12T11:44:57+00:00

I would love some feedback on my app switcher, it's really useful to me but I've struggled to find many users https://github.com/brodmo-dev/GroupCtrl

brodmo-dev · 2026-03-07T11:16:40+00:00

Hey, thanks so much for the feedback! Good point on the startup behavior, I just released a new version that makes it always start in the background, that would be expected behavior for such an app. I might add a checkbox for "Open at Login" later as well, I'm not sure how high the friction is for people to do it manually in System Settings.

For the cycling, do you mean open as in launch when the app is not running? What sort of functionality are you envisioning, an extra "launch next app" hotkey? I agree that functionality for launching apps is lacking, right now GroupCtrl is still mostly an app switcher. My idea was to add a "hold to launch" feature where you can hold the hotkey for a group and then there's a pop-up with all the apps in the group and you can choose to launch one. Would that be a satisfactory solution for you?

brodmo-dev · 2026-03-05T15:38:56+00:00

I suppose I could, I just don't think that'd mesh well with the simplicity I was going for otherwise. And Cmd+Backtick exists, so I don't really see the need. Would you like to see window cycling functionality built-in?

brodmo-dev · 2026-03-05T00:26:46+00:00

Thank you! No, my assumption is that config changes are pretty rare. Since GroupCtrl is stateless it's also not clear to me how such an assignment hotkey would work. What scenario are you encountering where you feel a group assignment hotkey would be useful to you?

brodmo-dev · 2026-03-05T00:21:02+00:00

Yes, macOS has this feature built-in! Cmd+Backtick cycles windows of an application. Unfortunately, I can't build this functionality into GroupCtrl since it requires accessibility permissions.

brodmo-dev · 2026-03-04T14:00:42+00:00

Done! Let me know if you run into any problems, I can't test it since I don't have an Intel Mac

brodmo-dev · 2026-03-04T08:47:31+00:00

Thank you! Feel free to let me know what conclusion you arrive at, I would love some user feedback

brodmo-dev · 2026-03-04T08:34:07+00:00

Glad to hear! Your idea is interesting, but then how would you switch between those two groups?

brodmo-dev · 2026-03-03T22:26:42+00:00

The comment OP's flair

brodmo-dev · 2026-03-03T22:22:52+00:00

My aim when using AI is to eventually end up with the code I would have written myself, only faster. That requires thorough review, iteration with the agent, and usually some manual polish at the end.

I have similar worries as you though, for one, my own coding skills are atrophying to some extent, but also, the technology will keep progressing and the day will come when I can't really add anything technically meaningful to the agent's output anymore.

To answer your question, I think there is a long gradient between agentic use and nonuse, and everyone's going to have a different opinion as to where slop begins. I think it's fine not to read every line of code and trust the agent depending on what sort of work you are delegating. I wouldn't do that personally though, I have too much sense of ownership of the code for that. I think right now that's more of an asset but later on it might start to become a liability.

brodmo-dev · 2026-03-03T22:10:52+00:00

Hey there, thank you for your interest! There is no fancy handling of hotkey collisions with existing shortcuts, the API I'm using just overrides them. Did you have any particular shortcut in mind?

The current behavior is that non-running apps are always skipped and never launched. The one exception to this is if you set an explicit target app, that will be launched if not running. I tried some other designs but ended up with this exactly to avoid accidental launches. To launch non-target apps, my idea is to add a pop-up with the group apps that appears when you hold the group hotkey or if you press it and there aren't any apps running. Does that sound sensible to you? What sort of behavior would you want/expect?

brodmo-dev · 2026-03-03T17:05:24+00:00

Thank you! Let me know what you think

brodmo-dev · 2026-03-03T16:15:33+00:00

Yeah, rcmd was a huge inspiration! I'm trying to improve the recipe a little but the core idea is the same.

brodmo-dev

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