Cocoa - Programmatically adding an application to all spaces

Question

is there a way to add an application to all spaces programmatically? I'd like my application to be on all spaces by default.

score 4 · Answer 1 · answered Sep 17 '11 at 23:34

4

The methods you need are in NSWindow.

For Lion use:

- (void)setCollectionBehavior:(NSWindowCollectionBehavior)behavior

For pre-Lion override the following to return YES:

- (BOOL)canBeVisibleOnAllSpaces

answered Sep 17 '11 at 23:34

sosborn

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Doesn't that only set what is allowed by the window. I think you have to specifically tell com.apple.dock via what was suggested previously. – Larvell Jones Sep 18 '11 at 01:46

Sjoerd · Answer 2 · 2011-09-18T09:33:37.187

This piece of code works for me (at least on 10.6.8 in a little project I recently worked on):

-(void)windowDidLoad {
    // Make the window visible on all Spaces
    if([[self window] respondsToSelector: @selector(setCollectionBehavior:)]) {
        [[self window] setCollectionBehavior: NSWindowCollectionBehaviorCanJoinAllSpaces];
    }
    else if([[self window] respondsToSelector: @selector(canBeVisibleOnAllSpaces)]) {
        [[self window] canBeVisibleOnAllSpaces]; // AVAILABLE_MAC_OS_X_VERSION_10_5_AND_LATER_BUT_DEPRECATED
    }
}

I put this code in a (custom subclass of a) WindowController for the main app window.

Works just fine for floating windows of my faceless bg app. No need to mess with the Dock preferences. — Thomas Tempelmann, Jan 12 '13 at 10:26

score 1 · Accepted Answer · edited May 23 '17 at 12:16

Ok. Just setting the workspaces-app-bindings programmatically didn't work. I tried:

1) Verified no entries were in System Preferences->Spaces

2) defaults write com.apple.dock workspaces-app-bindings -dict-add com.apple.mail 65544

3) killall Dock (also needed to kill System Preferences )

4) Opened System Preferences->Spaces to verify the Mail app entry 
   appeared and was set to Every Space

5) Launched Mail, but it was still stuck to Space 1

6) Only when I went back into System Preferences->Spaces and changed the 
   Mail app *from* Every Space and then *back* to Every Space did the Mail 
   app stick to every space

So clearly system preferences is doing something extra to activate the setting. Does anyone know what this could be? Thanks!

Update: So I was able to get this working by using the applescript api instead of the user defaults api. The following post tells how to append an entry using applescript. Then just kill the dock.

Applescript; opening an app in Space number N

score 0 · Answer 4 · answered Sep 17 '11 at 23:25

Use the defaults-command that ships with OS X, like so:

defaults write com.apple.dock workspaces-app-bindings -dict-add com.apple.mail 65544

By issuing the above command, you set the application identified by “com.apple.mail” to appear on every space. 65544 is a magic value saying “every space”. If the key-value pair (identifier + settings) exists it will be overwritten.

Note that you have to reload the Dock (killall Dock) and somehow execute these commands from within your application. From within objective-c you can use the following snippet to quit the Dock:

NSRunningApplication *dock = [NSRunningApplicationrunningApplicationWithBundleIdentifier:@"com.apple.dock"];
[dock terminate];

From within AppleScript use the following:

quit application "Dock"

Thanks for the response! Running a command line tool from an app seems a little hackish (no offense) though. Is there no API for this? — Larvell Jones, Sep 17 '11 at 23:30
You can use NSUserDefaults from the Cocoa API to write Defaults: http://www.cocoadev.com/index.pl?NSUserDefaults — scravy, Sep 17 '11 at 23:35

score 0 · Answer 5 · answered Sep 28 '11 at 18:39

0

Your app delegate should look like this...

#import "alwaysOnTopAppDelegate.h"

@implementation alwaysOnTopAppDelegate

@synthesize window;

- (void)applicationDidFinishLaunching:(NSNotification *)aNotification
{
    [window setCollectionBehavior:NSWindowCollectionBehaviorCanJoinAllSpaces];
}

@end

answered Sep 28 '11 at 18:39

Pétur Ingi Egilsson

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What's wrong with @Sjoerd can Geffen's answer? It appears to be more complete and also more correct as it's executed inside the window's instantiation code and not, like yours, in the app's instantiation code (at which time not all windows might be opened). – Thomas Tempelmann Jan 12 '13 at 10:15

Cocoa - Programmatically adding an application to all spaces

5 Answers5