Font Switch

A full-powered menu-bar app that beautifully blends SwiftUI and AppKit

Features • Installation • Architecture • Resources

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🛠️ Overview

Font Switch is a full-powered menu-bar application that pushes SwiftUI to its limits and uses AppKit to reach the finish line. While MenuBarExtra works great for simple cases, it doesn't handle right-click detection or draggable windows. SwiftUI's new window-management APIs are powerful, but not quite complete—for example, there's no way to programmatically set the key (focused) window.

Font Switch showcases how to build a production-ready menu-bar application using Swift 6 and the latest and greatest from SwiftUI—including the @Observable macro, window APIs, and onKeyPress() modifier. It also demonstrates Sparkle 2.0 integration for App Store alternatives and global shortcuts via HotKey. And that's just the tip of the iceberg.

✨ Features

Core Functionality

• 🎯 Global Font Switching — Instantly change the font of text selected in any application
• 📚 Full-Fledged Font Manager — CRUD operations for fonts and font collections
• 👁️ Font Visibility Control — Hide unwanted fonts to declutter your font picker
• ⌨️ Keyboard Navigation — Full keyboard support with focus rings and arrow key navigation

Developer Highlights

• Modern Architectures — Swift 6, structured concurrency, and the @Observable macro
• SwiftUI + AppKit Integration — Full-powered menu-bar app using NSStatusItem, NSPanel, and @NSApplicationDelegateAdaptor
• Keyboard Shortcuts Galore — Global shortcuts via HotKey and view-specific commands via onKeyPress()
• Custom Environment Actions — DismissAction-style custom environment types
• Sparkle Integration — Complete app update system with beta channel support via Sparkle

📸 Screenshots

Floating font-picker panel with programmatic focus (key state)

Font manager with collection browser and font visibility controls

Settings and menu-bar right-click menu

🚀 Installation

Requirements

• macOS 15.0 or later
• Xcode 26.0 or later
• Swift 6.0 or later

Building from Source

Before building, set:

1. DEVELOPMENT_TEAM — your Apple Team ID
2. BUNDLE_ID_PREFIX — your reverse-domain prefix (e.g. com.example)

Open the project in Xcode 26 or later and run on "My Mac".

Sparkle Setup

To set up Sparkle, check out Matteo Spada's exceptional implementation guide.

🏗 Architecture

Here's how Font Switch tackles some interesting macOS development challenges:

🍎 Menu Bar App with NSStatusItem

Since MenuBarExtra has limitations, Font Switch uses NSStatusItem for the menu bar integration:

• Full control over right-click detection and context menus
• NSHostingMenu to power AppKit menus with SwiftUI views—handy for avoiding runtime warnings when opening settings outside of a View

🪟 Floating Panels with NSPanel

The floating font picker uses a custom NSPanel implementation where standard window APIs fall short:

• FocusablePanel subclass handles proper focus management and position persistence across app launches
• Control whether the panel receives keyboard input (for searching) or the app with selected text receives input (for applying fonts) via the @Environment

🎨 Custom Environment Actions

Font Switch implements custom environment actions that work like DismissAction:

@Environment(\.focusMainWindow) private var focusMainWindow

Button("Focus Window") {
  focusMainWindow()
}

🔤 NSFontManager Integration

Font collection management uses NSFontManager for the heavy lifting:

• Create, rename, and delete collections
• Add fonts via context menu or drag-and-drop using the Transferable protocol
• Font visibility control with UserDefaults persistence
• Rich text formatting preservation when switching fonts across applications

⌨️ Advanced Keyboard Navigation

Keyboard navigation combines multiple techniques:

• onKeyPress() for view-specific commands
• @FocusState for managing focus across the interface
• Custom focus rings that match each view's shape for a polished feel

📋 Pasteboard Integration

The font switching works by manipulating the pasteboard:

• RTF formatting preservation
• Programmatic copy/paste with CGEvent simulation
• Original pasteboard state restoration after operations

📚 Resources

• SwiftUI Mac Windows — Overview of new window APIs
• NSFontManager Idiosyncrasies — API tips and tricks
• Making NSPanel Keyable — Making a utility window keyable (focusable)
• Sparkle 2.0 — Exceptional tutorial from Matteo Spada
• Requesting Accessibility Access — How to interact with other apps

📄 License

Font Switch is available under the MIT License. See LICENSE file for details.

🙏 Acknowledgments

• HotKey — Global shortcut framework
• Sparkle — App update framework
• App icon by Rudra Das