Detecting launched apps to update focused Aerospace Workspace

[RNBermudez]

Hello. I am having trouble updating the focused Aerospace Workspace item when a new application is launched on that workspace.

I have the following scripts for my Aerospace item and script, which in short displays the icons of running applications inside each workspace item and hide workspaces without running applications.

Aerospace Item

# Aerospace Item configuration for SketchyBar
# It is intended to be sourced by other SketchyBar configuration scripts, not executed directly.
source "${CONFIG_DIR}/icons.sh"

sketchybar --add event aerospace_workspace_change

workspaces=""

if [[ -z "${workspaces}" ]]; then
  workspaces=$(aerospace list-workspaces --all)
fi

for sid in ${workspaces}; do
  apps=$(aerospace list-windows --workspace "${sid}" | awk -F '\\| *' '{print $2}')
  icons=""
  for app in ${apps}; do
    icons+="$(workspace_icons "${app}")"
    space_label="${apps[@]}"
  done

  space=(
    "background.drawing=off"
    "icon=${sid}"
    "label=${icons}"
    "click_script=aerospace workspace ${sid}"
    "script=${CONFIG_DIR}/plugins/aerospace.sh ${sid}"
  )

  if [[ -z "${apps}" ]]; then
    space+=("icon.drawing=off" "label.drawing=off")
  fi

  sketchybar --add item space."${sid}" left \
    --subscribe space."${sid}" aerospace_workspace_change \
    --set space."${sid}" "${space[@]}"
done

Aerospace script

#!/usr/bin/env bash

source "${CONFIG_DIR}/colors.sh"
source "${CONFIG_DIR}/icons.sh"

running_apps=$(aerospace list-windows --workspace ${1} | awk -F '\\| *' '{print $2}')

apps=""
for app in ${running_apps}; do
  apps+="$(workspace_icons "${app}")"
done

space=(
  label="${apps}"
)

if [[ "${1}" = "$FOCUSED_WORKSPACE" ]]; then
  space+=("label.color=${aerospace_active_fg_color}" "icon.drawing=on" "label.drawing=on")
else
  space+=("label.color=${aerospace_inactive_fg_color}")

  if [[ -n "${apps}" ]]; then
    space+=("icon.drawing=on" "label.drawing=on")
  else
    space+=("icon.drawing=off" "label.drawing=off")
  fi
fi

sketchybar --set $NAME "${space[@]}"

Launching a new application, switching workspace back and forth will render the new application icon as expected, but I would like it to render without me switching workspaces. Is this something possible? Where should I be looking at?

I tried using the event front_app_switched but couldn't make it work.

On an unrelated note, there is a very noticeable lag on the items update whenever I switch workspace. I reckon that calling aerospace list isn't free, but it feels way too slow. Maybe there is something off on my config?

Thanks!

[RNBermudez]

I almost managed to make it work. However, there were a few issues that I couldn’t resolve:

• Moving applications between workspaces does not trigger an update (neither for the current nor the target workspace).
• Opening a new window of the same application won't trigger an update (this is to be expected as per the front_app_switched documentation).
• The performance is slow, noticeably slow. I do not know if there is a way around this, since in order to update the currently running applications on the focused workspace, I need to fetch these from the Aerospace API.
• Upon starting, all labels share the same foreground color.

Other than that, it does what is supposed to do: hide empty workspaces and show icons for the currently running applications on each workspace.

Thanks all.

---

Here’s the updated code for anyone who might be interested:

Aerospace item

# Aerospace Item configuration for SketchyBar
# It is intended to be sourced by other SketchyBar configuration scripts, not executed directly.
source "${CONFIG_DIR}/icons.sh"

sketchybar --add event aerospace_workspace_change

workspaces=""

if [[ -z "${workspaces}" ]]; then
  workspaces=$(aerospace list-workspaces --all)
fi

for sid in ${workspaces}; do
  apps=$(aerospace list-windows --workspace "${sid}" | awk -F '\\| *' '{print $2}')
  icons=""
  for app in ${apps}; do
    icons+="$(workspace_icons "${app}")"
    space_label="${apps[@]}"
  done

  space=(
    "background.drawing=off"
    "icon=${sid}"
    "label=${icons}"
    "click_script=aerospace workspace ${sid}"
    "script=${CONFIG_DIR}/plugins/aerospace.sh ${sid}"
  )

  if [[ -z "${apps}" ]]; then
    space+=("icon.drawing=off" "label.drawing=off")
  fi

  sketchybar --add item space."${sid}" left \
    --subscribe space."${sid}" front_app_switched aerospace_workspace_change \
    --set space."${sid}" "${space[@]}"
done

Aerospace plugin

#!/usr/bin/env bash

source "${CONFIG_DIR}/colors.sh"
source "${CONFIG_DIR}/icons.sh"

function get_workspace_running_apps() {
  local workspace=${1}
  local apps=$(aerospace list-windows --workspace ${workspace} | awk -F '\\| *' '{print $2}')
  local running_apps=""

  for app in ${apps}; do
    running_apps+="$(workspace_icons "${app}")"
  done

  printf "%s" "${running_apps}"
}

function update_on_workspace_change() {
  local workspace=${1}
  local apps=$(get_workspace_running_apps "${workspace}")
  local space=(
    label="${apps}"
  )

  if [[ "${workspace}" = "${FOCUSED_WORKSPACE}" ]]; then
    space+=(
      "label.color=${aerospace_active_fg_color}"
      "icon.drawing=on"
      "label.drawing=on")
  else
    space+=("label.color=${aerospace_inactive_fg_color}")

    if [[ -n "${apps}" ]]; then
      space+=("icon.drawing=on" "label.drawing=on")
    else
      space+=("icon.drawing=off" "label.drawing=off")
    fi
  fi

  sketchybar --set ${NAME} "${space[@]}"

}

update_on_front_app_switched() {
  local workspace=${1}
  local apps=$(get_workspace_running_apps "${workspace}")
  local space=(
    label="${apps}"
  )

  sketchybar --set "${NAME}" "${space[@]}"
}

case "${SENDER}" in
"aerospace_workspace_change")
  update_on_workspace_change "${1}"
  ;;
"front_app_switched")
  update_on_front_app_switched "${1}"
  ;;
"forced")
  exit
  ;;
*)
  update
  ;;
esac