Barista

This programm allows you to put any information you need into the OSX's menu bar.

There is similar software - the XBar and TextBar. The difference between the XBar and Barista:

• XBar periodically starts each plugin as a subprocess, Barista runs them as threads in the main process.
• With XBar, you need a place to keep state between the process invocations.
• With Barista, you just have all state in memory and don't need to bother.
• You can write plugins for XBar in any language, but most plugins are written in BASH.
• XBar's API forces you to use text to describe menu items.
• You are using powerful Common Lisp language, to implement plugins for Barista.
• Because of Lisp, you can debug your plugins, connecting the IDE to Barista process.

TextBar is similar to the XBar, but seems more featureful because it allows to render a dropdown as HTML and to display simple graphs in the menu bar. Probably, some of these features will be added to the Barista too.

Installation

Right now there is no a binary to install, you need a LispWorks to load and run program. Here is how to install it and run built-in plugins.

Fist, add an Ultralisp quicklisp distribution containing LispWorks extensions:

(ql-dist:install-dist "http://dist.ultralisp.org/lispworks.txt"
                      :prompt nil)

Next, load Barista with built-in plugins and run them:

(ql:quickload :barista)
(ql:quickload :barista-plugins)
(barista/main:start-plugins)

Roadmap

• Implement few useful plugins.
• Add a documentation.
• Create a distribution installable by Homebrew.
• Publish app to App Store.