Keep all system icons visible and click Spotlight properly

The spacer boundary cut off Now Playing and the input source, which
should stay like Wi-Fi, so move it left of every Apple item. Spotlight's
status item ignores the accessibility press action, so click it at its
real position instead.

💘 Generated with Crush

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

AGENTS.md

@@ -141,6 +141,9 @@ preferred position controls where the hidden/kept boundary lands:
   (`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.
+- `press` first calls `onWillPress`, which `AppDelegate` wires to close the
+  popover **and** `NSApp.deactivate()`. Closing alone left our app frontmost, so
+  transient items (Spotlight's search field) still would not appear.
 - **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

Sources/SimpleTopBar/App.swift

@@ -132,6 +132,19 @@ final class AppDelegate: NSObject, NSApplicationDelegate {
             )
         )
         self.popover = popover
+
+        // Selecting a tray item must dismiss our panel and give up focus,
+        // otherwise the panel stays on top of the menu and our app stays
+        // frontmost, which stops transient items (Spotlight's search field)
+        // from appearing at all.
+        Task { @MainActor [weak self] in
+            MenuBarItemManager.shared.onWillPress = {
+                self?.popover?.performClose(nil)
+                DispatchQueue.main.asyncAfter(deadline: .now() + 0.05) {
+                    NSApp.deactivate()
+                }
+            }
+        }
     }
 
     @objc private func togglePopover() {

Sources/SimpleTopBar/MenuBarItems.swift

@@ -11,6 +11,8 @@ struct MenuBarItem: Identifiable, Equatable {
     let icon: NSImage
     /// True for Apple's own items (Control Center, Spotlight, …).
     let isSystem: Bool
+    /// Frame in Accessibility coordinates (origin top-left of the main screen).
+    let frame: CGRect?
     let element: AXUIElement
 
     static func == (lhs: MenuBarItem, rhs: MenuBarItem) -> Bool {
@@ -30,6 +32,9 @@ final class MenuBarItemManager: ObservableObject {
 
     private var observers: [NSObjectProtocol] = []
 
+    /// Called just before pressing an item so the owner can close its panel.
+    var onWillPress: (() -> Void)?
+
     private init() {}
 
     func start() {
@@ -72,10 +77,11 @@ final class MenuBarItemManager: ObservableObject {
 
             var seenTitles = Set<String>()
             for (index, child) in children.enumerated() {
+                let position = pointAttribute(child, kAXPositionAttribute)
                 // Control Center reports every module it owns, including the
                 // ones not in the menu bar, which are parked off-screen around
                 // y=982. Keep only items actually sitting in the bar.
-                if let position = pointAttribute(child, kAXPositionAttribute), position.y > 60 {
+                if let position, position.y > 60 {
                     continue
                 }
 
@@ -87,6 +93,14 @@ final class MenuBarItemManager: ObservableObject {
                 // "Control Center"; show each distinct title once per app.
                 if !seenTitles.insert(title).inserted { continue }
 
+                let size = sizeAttribute(child, kAXSizeAttribute)
+                let frame: CGRect?
+                if let position, let size {
+                    frame = CGRect(origin: position, size: size)
+                } else {
+                    frame = nil
+                }
+
                 found.append(MenuBarItem(
                     id: "\(pid)-\(index)",
                     pid: pid,
@@ -94,6 +108,7 @@ final class MenuBarItemManager: ObservableObject {
                     title: title,
                     icon: Self.icon(forTitle: title, app: app),
                     isSystem: Self.isSystemBundle(app.bundleIdentifier),
+                    frame: frame,
                     element: child
                 ))
             }
@@ -113,6 +128,10 @@ final class MenuBarItemManager: ObservableObject {
     /// hide again shortly after. The reveal is momentary rather than lasting the
     /// whole time the panel is open.
     func press(_ item: MenuBarItem) {
+        // Close our own panel first, otherwise it stays open on top of the
+        // menu that is about to appear (and can leave menus behind it).
+        onWillPress?()
+
         let hider = MenuBarHider.shared
         let needsReveal = hider.isHiding
         guard needsReveal else {
@@ -120,23 +139,38 @@ final class MenuBarItemManager: ObservableObject {
             return
         }
         hider.suspend()
-        DispatchQueue.main.asyncAfter(deadline: .now() + 0.2) {
+        DispatchQueue.main.asyncAfter(deadline: .now() + 0.25) {
             _ = 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) {
+            // spot, so the bar can be re-hidden shortly after.
+            DispatchQueue.main.asyncAfter(deadline: .now() + 0.4) {
                 hider.resume()
             }
         }
     }
 
     private func performPress(_ item: MenuBarItem) -> Bool {
+        // Spotlight's status item accepts the accessibility press action but
+        // does nothing with it; it needs a genuine click.
+        if item.appName.lowercased().contains("spotlight"), let frame = item.frame {
+            postClick(at: CGPoint(x: frame.midX, y: frame.midY))
+            return true
+        }
         if AXUIElementPerformAction(item.element, kAXPressAction as CFString) == .success {
             return true
         }
         return AXUIElementPerformAction(item.element, kAXShowMenuAction as CFString) == .success
     }
 
+    /// Posts a real left click at a point in Accessibility/global coordinates.
+    private func postClick(at point: CGPoint) {
+        let source = CGEventSource(stateID: .hidSystemState)
+        let down = CGEvent(mouseEventSource: source, mouseType: .leftMouseDown, mouseCursorPosition: point, mouseButton: .left)
+        let up = CGEvent(mouseEventSource: source, mouseType: .leftMouseUp, mouseCursorPosition: point, mouseButton: .left)
+        down?.post(tap: .cghidEventTap)
+        up?.post(tap: .cghidEventTap)
+    }
+
     // MARK: - Classification
 
     /// Apple's own menu bar items (Control Center, Spotlight, the input-source
@@ -228,6 +262,16 @@ final class MenuBarItemManager: ObservableObject {
         guard AXValueGetValue(value as! AXValue, .cgPoint, &point) else { return nil }
         return point
     }
+
+    nonisolated static func sizeAttribute(_ element: AXUIElement, _ attribute: String) -> CGSize? {
+        var value: CFTypeRef?
+        guard AXUIElementCopyAttributeValue(element, attribute as CFString, &value) == .success,
+              let value,
+              CFGetTypeID(value) == AXValueGetTypeID() else { return nil }
+        var size = CGSize.zero
+        guard AXValueGetValue(value as! AXValue, .cgSize, &size) else { return nil }
+        return size
+    }
 }
 
 /// Best-effort menu bar item hiding. A zero-width spacer status item is created
@@ -272,7 +316,7 @@ final class MenuBarHider: ObservableObject {
         if let override = UserDefaults.standard.object(forKey: "debug.spacerPos") as? Double {
             UserDefaults.standard.set(override, forKey: key)
         } else if UserDefaults.standard.object(forKey: key) == nil {
-            UserDefaults.standard.set(250.0, forKey: key)
+            UserDefaults.standard.set(350.0, forKey: key)
         }
         let item = NSStatusBar.system.statusItem(withLength: 0)
         item.autosaveName = name

Sources/SimpleTopBar/SelfTest.swift

@@ -103,9 +103,9 @@ func runSelfTest() {
     check(MenuBarItemManager.children(of: systemWide) == nil, "no children on a non-app element")
 
     let element = AXUIElementCreateSystemWide()
-    let first = MenuBarItem(id: "1-0", pid: 1, appName: "A", title: "T", icon: NSImage(), isSystem: false, element: element)
-    let same = MenuBarItem(id: "1-0", pid: 1, appName: "A", title: "T", icon: NSImage(), isSystem: false, element: element)
-    let different = MenuBarItem(id: "1-1", pid: 1, appName: "A", title: "T", icon: NSImage(), isSystem: false, element: element)
+    let first = MenuBarItem(id: "1-0", pid: 1, appName: "A", title: "T", icon: NSImage(), isSystem: false, frame: nil, element: element)
+    let same = MenuBarItem(id: "1-0", pid: 1, appName: "A", title: "T", icon: NSImage(), isSystem: false, frame: nil, element: element)
+    let different = MenuBarItem(id: "1-1", pid: 1, appName: "A", title: "T", icon: NSImage(), isSystem: false, frame: nil, element: element)
     check(first == same, "menu bar items compare by id and title")
     check(first != different, "different ids are not equal")
 

Sources/SimpleTopBar/TopBarView.swift

@@ -95,7 +95,7 @@ struct TopBarView: View {
                 .controlSize(.mini)
                 .padding(.horizontal, 12)
                 .padding(.top, 6)
-                .help("Best-effort: pushes other apps' icons off the menu bar so they only live here. Apple's Wi-Fi, Spotlight, Clock, Battery and Control Center stay visible; macOS won't let any third-party app move them.")
+                .help("Best-effort: pushes other apps' icons off the menu bar so they only live here. Apple's system items (Wi-Fi, Now Playing, Clock, Battery, Control Center, Spotlight) stay visible; macOS won't let any third-party app move them.")
             }
         }
     }

build-app.sh

@@ -2,7 +2,7 @@
 set -euo pipefail
 cd "$(dirname "$0")"
 
-VERSION="${1:-0.4.2}"
+VERSION="${1:-0.4.5}"
 
 swift build -c release