DSFDockTile

Easily display images, animations, badges and alerts to your macOS application's dock icon.

I was inspired by Neil Sardesai after he posted this on Twitter. And this marvellous follow-up tweet by Norbert M. Doerner.

While the NSDockTile API isn't overly complex, I wanted something that made it easy to change the dock image, and even add basic animations from GIF images etc.

• Set the badge label
• Display an image
• Display an animated image
• Display the content of an NSView
• Bounce the docktile

By default a DSFDockTile instance operates on the Application's docktile. You can provide your own NSDockTile for any window (by calling window.dockTile) via the init functions on the badge generators.

Did you know that your application can show a custom DockTile image even when it's not running? Apple provides an NSDockTilePlugin prodocol that allows you to do exactly that. Want to provide different application icons for dark and light modes? NSDockTilePlugin allows you to! Want to tweak the dock icon when your application isn't running, but needs attention? NSDockTilePlugin!

There is a demo application in the Demos folder called 'DSFDockTile Plugin Demo' (macOS 11+) that demonstrates using NSDockTilePlugin and DSFDockIcon in SwiftUI.

Add https://github.com/dagronf/DSFDockTile to your project.

If you don't want to include the DSFImageFlipbook package, copy all the files in the Sources/ folder EXCEPT for DSFDockTile+Animation.swift.

There is a demo macOS application available in the Demos subfolder.

It's very easy to add a badge label to a docktile.

// Set the label on the docktile to 1234
DSFDockTile.badgeLabel = "1234"

// Remove the badge label from the docktile
DSFDockTile.badgeLabel = nil

Set the docktile to the application's icon.

// Set the dock icon to the application icon
DSFDockTile.AppIcon.display()

This is a DSFDockTile object that displays a single image. Useful for if you have a set of images to display in the docktile that do not change and you want to the constantness.

static let LockedImage   = NSImage(named: NSImage.Name("padlock-locked"))!
static let UnlockedImage = NSImage(named: NSImage.Name("padlock-unlocked"))!

let LockedDockTileImage = DSFDockTile.ConstantImage(LockedImage)
let UnlockedDockTileImage = DSFDockTile.ConstantImage(UnlockedImage)
...

if application.isEditable {
   UnlockedDockTileImage.display()
}
else {
   LockedDockTileImage.display()
}

This is a DSFDockTile object that can display images.

static let LockedImage   = NSImage(named: NSImage.Name("padlock-locked"))!
static let UnlockedImage = NSImage(named: NSImage.Name("padlock-unlocked"))!

let stateDockTile = DSFDockTile.Image()

...

func viewDidLoad() {
   let image = application.isEditable ? UnlockedImage : LockedImage
   stateDockTile.display(image)
}

This is a DSFDockTile object that can display the content of a view managed by a view controller

Due to NSDockTile restrictions, the view is not drawn live into the dock as the view is updated. You must call display() to update the dock tile with the view's current content whenever a change occurs in the view.

/// The view controller to display on the docktile
let dockViewController = DockViewController()

/// The docktile instance handling the docktile
lazy var updateDockTile: DSFDockTile.View = {
   dockViewController.loadView()
   return DSFDockTile.View(dockViewController)
}()
...
func doUpdate() {
   // Change the color of the item in the 
   self.dockViewController.foregroundColor = .systemYellow

   // NSDockTile does not update automatically so need to tell it when changes are made
   self.updateDockTile.display()
}

This is a docktile that can display an animation. It uses DSFImageFlipbook under the seams to handle the animation itself.

let animatedDockTile: DSFDockTile.Animated = {
   let fb = DSFImageFlipbook()
   let da = NSDataAsset(name: NSDataAsset.Name("animated-gif"))!
   _ = fb.loadFrames(from: da.data)
   return DSFDockTile.Animated(fb)
}()

...

@IBAction func startAnimating(_ sender: Any) {
   animatedDockTile.startAnimating()
}

@IBAction func stopAnimating(_ sender: Any) {
   animatedDockTile.stopAnimating()
}

The DockTile view is used to manipulate the docktile for

• The application (.application)
• The window containing the DockTile View (.window)

You can set which docktile you want to update in the initializer of the DockTile View

To set a badge using SwiftUI, use the DockTile view and provide a label for the badge

@State var badgeLabel: String = ""
var body: some Scene {
   WindowGroup {
      ZStack {
         ContentView()
         DockTile(label: badgeLabel)
      }
   }
}

To set the content of a dock tile, provide a view to the initializer. Set to nil to return the docktile to its default.

@State var dockText: String = ""
var body: some Scene {
   WindowGroup {
      ZStack {
         ContentView()
         DockTile(
            .window,
            label: "3",
            content: ZStack {
               Color.white
               Text(dockText)
            }
         )
      }
   }
}

Remember that the DockTile API does not provide live docktile updating, and will require you to update the view for each visual change you want to make

You can request user information via the DockTile of an application if your application is not the front-most application.

See Apple's Documentation for more details.

Request that the docktile 'bounce' to inform the user of something informational. The function returns an object which you can use to cancel the attention request.

let cancellable = DSFDockTile.requestInformationalAttention()

The cancellable can be used to cancel the information request.

See Apple's Documentation

Request that the docktile 'bounce' to inform the user of something informational. The function returns an object which you can use to cancel the attention request.

let cancellable = DSFDockTile.requestCriticalAttention()

The cancellable can be used to cancel the critical request.

See Apple's Documentation

The user attention methods return an object that conforms to DSFDockTileUserAttentionCancellation that can be used to cancel an attention request.

See Apple's Documentation

• Neil Sardesai

• Norbert M. Doerner

• The images (light/dark) in the demo application are thanks to brgfx on freepix

  • Attribution - Background vector created by brgfx - www.freepik.com

• Here is the project I used to understand how to use NSDockTilePlugin for my own project. https://github.com/rrroyal/AutomaticDockTile

MIT. Use it and abuse it for anything you want, just attribute my work. Let me know if you do use it somewhere, I'd love to hear about it!

MIT License

Copyright (c) 2022 Darren Ford

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