Shorten the icon reveal when opening a tray menu

The menu is its own window anchored where the item was revealed, so it
survives if the bar re-hides immediately. Revealing for ~0.3s instead of
over a second makes the flash far less noticeable while still opening
the menu in view.

💘 Generated with Crush

Assisted-by: Crush:deepseek-v4.1-flash

AGENTS.md

@@ -134,6 +134,17 @@ preferred position controls where the hidden/kept boundary lands:
 - Verified with `--diag-hide` across positions 100–400. Below ~200 Wi-Fi gets
   hidden too; above ~300 app icons (Now Playing, TextInput) leak back.
 - `debug.spacerPos` (Double) overrides the seed for tuning without rebuilding.
+- Pressing a tray tile calls `MenuBarItemManager.press`. A hidden item sits
+  off-screen, and its menu opens off-screen too (verified with `--diag-press`:
+  the menu window lands at negative x). So press briefly `suspend()`s the hider,
+  waits ~0.2s for the layout to settle, performs the accessibility action
+  (`kAXPressAction`, then `kAXShowMenuAction`), and `resume()`s ~0.1s later. The
+  menu is its own window anchored at the item's on-screen spot, so it survives
+  re-hiding.
+- **Cannot reveal a single icon.** The spacer hides a contiguous block to its
+  left, so a press can only reveal the whole block. Isolating one item would
+  need either per-item ordering control (not available) or covering the icons
+  with an overlay window instead of moving them off-screen.
 - **Order matters**: `AppDelegate` must call `setupStatusItem()` *before*
   `MenuBarHider.shared.prepare()`. If the hider contracts the bar first, the
   hamburger is created into the collapsed space and lands off-screen.

Sources/SimpleTopBar/App.swift

@@ -48,6 +48,27 @@ final class AppDelegate: NSObject, NSApplicationDelegate {
         setupStatusItem()
         MenuBarHider.shared.prepare()
 
+        if CommandLine.arguments.contains("--diag-press") {
+            DispatchQueue.main.asyncAfter(deadline: .now() + 2.0) {
+                MenuBarHider.shared.suspend()
+            }
+            DispatchQueue.main.asyncAfter(deadline: .now() + 2.25) {
+                if let item = MenuBarItemManager.enumerate().first(where: {
+                    $0.title.lowercased().contains("wireguard")
+                }) {
+                    NSLog("diag-press: pressing \(item.appName) after brief reveal")
+                    _ = AXUIElementPerformAction(item.element, kAXPressAction as CFString)
+                }
+            }
+            DispatchQueue.main.asyncAfter(deadline: .now() + 2.45) {
+                MenuBarHider.shared.resume()
+            }
+            DispatchQueue.main.asyncAfter(deadline: .now() + 4.5) {
+                dumpWindows()
+            }
+            return
+        }
+
         if CommandLine.arguments.contains("--diag") {
             DispatchQueue.main.asyncAfter(deadline: .now() + 2.5) {
                 dumpMenuBarItems()

Sources/SimpleTopBar/MenuBarItems.swift

@@ -103,10 +103,31 @@ final class MenuBarItemManager: ObservableObject {
         }
     }
 
-    /// Opens the real menu bar item by pressing its accessibility element, so
+    /// Opens the real menu bar item, so its menu/popover appears.
-    /// its menu/popover appears at its true screen location.
+    ///
-    @discardableResult
+    /// A hidden item sits off-screen, and its menu would open off-screen too.
-    func press(_ item: MenuBarItem) -> Bool {
+    /// So briefly reveal the items, let the layout settle, press the item, then
+    /// hide again shortly after. The reveal is momentary rather than lasting the
+    /// whole time the panel is open.
+    func press(_ item: MenuBarItem) {
+        let hider = MenuBarHider.shared
+        let needsReveal = hider.isHiding
+        guard needsReveal else {
+            _ = performPress(item)
+            return
+        }
+        hider.suspend()
+        DispatchQueue.main.asyncAfter(deadline: .now() + 0.2) {
+            _ = self.performPress(item)
+            // The menu is its own window, positioned at the item's on-screen
+            // spot, so the bar can be re-hidden almost immediately.
+            DispatchQueue.main.asyncAfter(deadline: .now() + 0.1) {
+                hider.resume()
+            }
+        }
+    }
+
+    private func performPress(_ item: MenuBarItem) -> Bool {
         if AXUIElementPerformAction(item.element, kAXPressAction as CFString) == .success {
             return true
         }
@@ -252,6 +273,22 @@ final class MenuBarHider: ObservableObject {
         isHiding = hiding
     }
 
+    /// Temporarily reveal the items (e.g. while the panel is open) so pressing
+    /// a tray icon opens its menu at its real, on-screen position. Keeps the
+    /// user's `enabled` preference untouched.
+    func suspend() {
+        guard enabled else { return }
+        spacer?.length = 0
+        isHiding = false
+    }
+
+    /// Restore hiding after a `suspend()`.
+    func resume() {
+        guard enabled else { return }
+        spacer?.length = Self.hiddenLength
+        isHiding = true
+    }
+
     /// Put the menu bar back the way we found it. Called on quit. Leaves the
     /// user's preference intact.
     func restore() {

Sources/SimpleTopBar/SelfTest.swift

@@ -1,5 +1,28 @@
 import AppKit
 import ApplicationServices
+import CoreGraphics
+
+/// Diagnostic used by `open SimpleTopBar.app --args --diag-press`. Presses a
+/// hidden item's accessibility element without revealing it and dumps the
+/// resulting high-level windows, to see where its menu actually opens.
+func dumpWindows() {
+    var lines: [String] = []
+    if let list = CGWindowListCopyWindowInfo([], kCGNullWindowID) as? [[String: Any]] {
+        for window in list {
+            let layer = window[kCGWindowLayer as String] as? Int ?? -1
+            guard layer > 20 else { continue }
+            let owner = window[kCGWindowOwnerName as String] as? String ?? "?"
+            let bounds = window[kCGWindowBounds as String] as? [String: Any] ?? [:]
+            let x = bounds["X"] as? Double ?? 0
+            let y = bounds["Y"] as? Double ?? 0
+            let width = bounds["Width"] as? Double ?? 0
+            let height = bounds["Height"] as? Double ?? 0
+            lines.append("\(owner) layer=\(layer) frame=\(Int(x)),\(Int(y)) \(Int(width))x\(Int(height))")
+        }
+    }
+    try? lines.joined(separator: "\n").write(toFile: "/tmp/simpletopbar-windows.txt", atomically: true, encoding: .utf8)
+    exit(0)
+}
 
 /// Diagnostic used by `open SimpleTopBar.app --args --dump-items`. Writes the
 /// live Accessibility view of the menu bar to /tmp so it can be inspected