Of course, BitBar/SwiftBar plugins aren’t written in AppleScript, so I had to teach myself how to write a shell script. There is a plugin browser that lets you install plugins without needing to go to a GitHub repo (which makes sharing my plugin a lot easier). SwiftBar is built in Swift, taps into the existing BitBar Plugin library, and has a much better user experience. Luckily there is a spiritual successor in SwiftBar. It turns out BitBar didn’t work well in BigSur and was increasingly difficult to maintain for the developer. I figured I would just convert my AppleScript to a BitBar plugin and add it to the repo. There’s a whole repository of user contributed plugins. BitBar is an application that originally displayed Bitcoin prices in the menu bar (hence the name), but it’s now been extended to display just about anything. I wanted a way to package the application, but didn’t actually want to join the Apple Developer Program. It’s kind of a lot of hoops to jump through. Then they would also need to install AnyBar. Someone would need to get my AppleScript code, paste it into Script Editor, and then save it as an application with the correct boxes checked. One of the big issues with with using AppleScript and AnyBar is that it’s hard to distribute. I originaly thought my last attempt at creating a Zoom mute indicator was good enough, but I couldn’t leave well enough alone and had to rebuild the whole thing with something new.
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