The menu bar panel and macro widgets

A left click on the Switchboard glyph opens the panel: a search field, what needs your attention, what is running, your favorites and a tool strip. A right click opens the classic menu.

Put a macro on the panel #

Any macro can add itself to the panel with a panel field. It shows only while the macro's Only if list holds, in a section named after that context, and runs like any other run (Activity says it was started from the panel).

• button runs the macro.

• toggle shows a State and forces it on or off. The macro's steps, if it has any, run with the input on.

• readout shows a reading from an App Kit or a shared variable.

• slider runs the macro with a number input when you let go.

To add one, use Show in menu bar panel in a macro's Inspector, or choose New Widget… from the right-click menu of the panel's + button, of any widget, or of the glyph. Edit Widgets… in the same menus lists every widget and whether it can show now.

A macro with Only if "Front app is Safari" and a button appears under In Safari while Safari is in front, and is gone when it is not. With the office Wi-Fi it appears under At the office; with an image on the clipboard, under Clipboard has an image. A widget with no Only if sits in Always at the bottom.

The panel only reads conditions it can read without asking anything of your Mac: the front app, window title, clipboard, time, Wi-Fi, battery, displays, running apps, States, App Kit readings, and the current selection. A condition that runs a script or a model, or needs a permission prompt, keeps the widget hidden, and the macro's Lint says so.

Keyboard #

Up and Down move through the rows, Return runs a button, Space flips a toggle, Left and Right move a slider (Shift for ten steps) and set it a moment after the last key.

When the trial has ended or Switchboard is paused #

Widgets stay in place but dimmed. A trial that has ended shows a lock; any click opens the licence page. While paused, they do nothing.