Commander Tabbington

Commander Tabbington (just Tabbington is preferred, or El Commanderino if you're not into the whole brevity thing...) is a lightweight macOS app/window switcher that shows a non-activating overlay with a grid of apps or windows and lets you cycle selection from the keyboard. It favors speed, predictability, and minimal visual noise over thumbnails or live previews.

Project Status

This is exceptionally early-stage software. I built it for personal use and am sharing it in case others find it helpful - expect rough edges. It's also vibe coded up one side and down the other. I know neither Swift nor Cocoa - although I do know about a half dozen other languages and frameworks, so it's not as if I'm flying blind. I'm much more of a debugger than a developer in this case, though.

Features

• Fast, keyboard-driven switching with a non-activating overlay (doesn't steal focus).
• App grid view (one icon per app), with an optional per-window mode.
• Deterministic MRU ordering for predictable cycling.
• Preference-driven inclusion/exclusion of hidden and/or minimized apps.

Why Another Switcher?

I wanted something that's:

• Open source.
• Minimal (no thumbnails, no live previews).
• Decluttered - segregates hidden and minimized apps.

I've found AltTab to be too buggy for consistent use, and Contexts lacks a per-app mode and is commercial. Witch has this weird .prefPane thing going, and also didn't provide the modes or configurability that I wanted. But of course your mileage may vary - Tabbington may be just as bad for you as the alternatives were for me!

Design Goals

• Reduce visual clutter and improve responsiveness.
• No thumbnails; prefer one icon per app (with optional per-window mode).
• Segregate or omit hidden and/or minimized apps based on preferences.
• Keep the overlay non-activating so it does not steal focus.
• Maintain deterministic MRU ordering for quick switching.

How It Works (High Level)

• Enumerates windows/apps via CoreGraphics and Accessibility.
• Renders a SwiftUI grid inside a borderless, non-activating NSPanel.
• Keyboard input cycles selection; focus/activation happens only on commit.
• Supports per-app and per-window modes in Preferences.

Requirements

• macOS 12.0 or later.
• Accessibility permission (see below).
• Xcode (recent version recommended).

Permissions

Commander Tabbington requires Accessibility permission to enumerate and focus other apps/windows.

To enable it:

1. Open System Settings → Privacy & Security → Accessibility
2. Add/enable Commander Tabbington
3. Quit and relaunch the app (if it's already running)

On some systems, Input Monitoring may still be required for global shortcut capture; if event taps fail, the app will prompt you to grant it.

Build and Run

• Open CommanderTabbington.xcodeproj in Xcode.
• Select the CommanderTabbington target.
• Use your local signing setup to run on your machine.
• Build and run as usual from Xcode.

Art Assets

The art/ directory contains optional artwork you can use for highlights or branding (not required to build or run the app).

Contributing

Issues and PRs are welcome. I may handle contributions somewhat ad hoc due to limited maintainer bandwidth; if you have a bugfix or improvement, a short, focused PR description is appreciated.

Known Limitations

This has literally only been tested in my own environment. I'll improve compatibility and edge cases as time allows.

Contact

Preferred: GitHub issues. Backup: chuttenh@gmail.com.

License

MIT. See LICENSE.