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Launchpad_Back (English)

Description

As macOS 26 Tahoe removed the native Launchpad, this SwiftUI application was created for convenience to replicate its core functionality. It provides a user-friendly interface to view, search, and launch installed applications in a familiar grid-based, paginated layout.

Features

• Application Discovery: Automatically scans and displays all applications from standard macOS directories (/Applications, /System/Applications, and /System/Applications/Utilities).
• Grid Layout & Pagination: Arranges apps in a clean grid. If there are more apps than can fit on one screen, they are organized into multiple pages.
• Smooth Navigation: Users can navigate between pages using:
  • A two-finger swipe gesture on the trackpad.
  • A click-and-drag gesture with the mouse.
  • Arrow keys.
• Real-time Search: A search bar at the top allows users to instantly filter applications by name.
• Visual Appeal: Features a blurred, translucent background effect that mimics the native macOS Launchpad (an attempt was made to create a Liquid Glass effect, but it proved too difficult).
• Keyboard Shortcuts:
  • Cmd + W: Close the Launchpad window.
  • Cmd + Q: Quit the application.
  • Esc: Clear the search field or close the window if the search is empty.
  • Arrow Keys: Switch pages.
• Performance:
  • App scanning is performed on a background thread to keep the UI responsive.
  • App icons are loaded asynchronously and cached.

How It Works

• LaunchpadViewModel: This is the core of the application's logic. It's responsible for finding all .app bundles, parsing their Info.plist to get metadata (like name and bundle ID), handling duplicates, and providing the final list of apps to the view.
• ContentView: This file contains all the SwiftUI views that make up the user interface.
  • LaunchpadView: The main view that orchestrates all other components.
  • PageView: Represents a single page in the grid.
  • AppIcon: A view for an individual application icon and its name.
  • SearchBar: The search component.
  • PageIndicator: The dots at the bottom indicating the current page.
• Gesture & Event Handling: The app uses a combination of DragGesture for mouse dragging, a custom NSViewRepresentable (TouchpadScrollView) to detect trackpad scrolling, and NSEvent.addLocalMonitorForEvents to listen for global keyboard events.