SketchyBar Helper

This demo implementation shows how to directly communicate with SketchyBar from C or C++ to create advanced and fast helper programs.

Sending Messages to SketchyBar

The relevant function to send messages to SketchyBar is defined in the sketchybar.h header:

char* sketchybar(char* message);

it takes a message, e.g. "--query bar", and returns the response from sketchybar.

Receiving Events from SketchyBar (SketchyBar >= v2.9.0)

Additionally you can run the event server, which makes the helper listen for event calls from SketchyBar:

void event_server_begin(mach_handler handler, char* mach_helper);

where the handler is a function pointer to a function where all events are handled:

void handler(env env);

and the mach_helper string is used to register the helper.

In SketchyBar (starting from v2.9.0) the helper needs to be registered for an item, e.g

sketchybar --set <name> mach_helper=<string>

where the string is the same as used to register the helper.

Note: The helper must run before the mach_helper property in SketchyBar is set.

Compile

To compile the example run:

clang -std=c99 helper.c -o helper

You could decide to copy the helpers source code to the sketchybar config and compile and run it automatically in sketchybarrc:

HELPER=git.felix.helper
killall helper
cd $HOME/.config/sketchybar/helper && make
$HOME/.config/sketchybar/helper/helper $HELPER &

Example

Run the binary

./helper test

and add an item to your sketchybar like so:

sketchybar --add item front_app_mach left \
           --set front_app_mach mach_helper=test \
           --subscribe front_app_mach front_app_switched

and note how the item communicates with the helper to handle the front_app_switched event