Improve blacklist UX

[alt-tab-macos-bot]

This issue was opened by a bot after a user submitted feedback through the in-app form.

From: [email protected]

Message:

Firstly, thanks for creating this and making it open-source. I have been a long time user of Contexts and Alt-Tab is simply the best app switcher for mac.

Can you please update the guide on your website on how to blacklist apps since everyone might not be aware that they have to enter bundle IDs?

Or modifying the blacklisting to allow simple app names.

[lwouis]

Thanks for sharing this feedback!

Indeed the blacklist UX is quite poor. I was very aware of it while implementing it. I did it the way it is to get the feature out of the door and give functionality to the users asking for it. Ideally the UI would be better at managing items in the list.

Some apps show a list of active apps to pick from. Some others show a list of apps such as what launchpad would show. Both have limitations though

PRs very welcome for this ticket! Please discuss your plans for the UI before submitting a PR though 👍

[lwouis]

See for instance, #549 in which I had to allow blacklisting the beginning of a bundleID instead of a the full ID, so that tricky apps like Parallels can be blacklisted. How would a UI look like that also handles this scenario?

Maybe a selector UI first, then after the UI picks the app, it would add the bundle ID instead of a nice App Name + Icon?

[lwouis]

Another lesson from #386 is that if we have a UI to list apps, it will need to show all apps AltTab is observing, not just apps in the Dock.

[SoPat712]

Is there any other identifier for windows in mac other than bundleID?

[lwouis]

A bundleIdentifier identifies an app bundle (i.e. a .app). It doesn't identify windows. Windows have a CGWindowID.

• Regarding bundleIdentifier. It identifiers uniquely an app bundle. Some apps are not package as a bundle. Like a binary, a daemon, the Android Simulator, etc. This creates an issue on how to identify such apps. What I've done in the past is identify them based on the path of their executable, or based on the argument they were started with.
• Regarding CGWindowId. These are allocated at window creation time, and they uniquely identify a window only while it exists. When the window is destroyed, the ID is free'd and can be assigned to another window. Re-opening the "same" window gives it a new ID. This blocking windows based on their ID would not work.

[lwouis]

Interesting to note how Contexts does this UI, with a combination of an app picker and a title matching regex. Note that the app picker lists currently running apps, not all installed apps. Also note that it's showing processes not having a Dock icon.

[lwouis]

In order to also incorporate the scope of #648, I think the future UI should combine both current blacklists into 1 that looks like the screenshot above (i.e. using NSTableView) that looks like this:

App	Don't show this app	Ignore shortcuts when this app is active
Localized name	[Don't show anything / Only show open windows ]	[Always / Only if active window is fullscreen]

Alternatively, we could replace Only show open windows with Only show windows with this pattern as shown on the screenshot above. It would allow more fine-tuning, but since no-one asked for this level of granularity, I think we can simplify with the 2 options I listed.

[lwouis]

A potential half-way solution / quick-win: #858

[lwouis]

Writing this so I can refer it for people who need to blacklist an app before this ticket is implemented:

• Open Terminal.app
• Type this command: mdls -name kMDItemCFBundleIdentifier /Application/Bothersome.app (replace the end with the path to the app you want to blacklist)
• Press enter
• Copy-paste the result in AltTab's blacklist window

[lwouis]

Specs to implement this ticket:

• Replace the 2 NSTextViews with 2 NSTableViews
• Each would have a + and - button to add/remove items
  • Clicking + would bring a native file picker UI, which can only pick applications
  • Adding an app would list it in the list with its icon and name
  • Adding an app multiple times would not do anything
  • Adding an app which has no bundleIdentifier (e.g. Android Simulator) would do nothing
• For the first table, add an extra column where each row will have a dropdown:
  • Hide all windows
  • Hide open windows
  • Hide when no open window
• Tables have no headers
• Tables scroll when they overflow with items
• If names are truncated, mouse hover to reveal

Regarding implementing the list UI, here are some good StackOverflow threads:

• https://stackoverflow.com/questions/22586313/nstableview-with-buttons-like-in-system-preferences-using-only-interface-bui/22586314#22586314
• https://stackoverflow.com/questions/10706357/nstableview-with-plus-and-minus-buttons

[lwouis]

Actually, we can't have name and icon because it can vary over time and setup.

The only thing we can preset is the bundleIds.

We could scan the /Applications folder and look for the preset bundleIds and add name and icon to those we find. But people can have apps in other folders. Also the apps they don't have wouldn't be updated like that.