Clicks and shortcuts

Clicking

Gesture	Effect
Click	Launch or activate. Clicking the application you are already in hides it.
⌘-click	Show in Finder
⌥-click	Hide the application, or bring it back
⌥⌘-click	Show this application and hide every other one
⇧-click	Quit the application — or, on a window button, close that window
⇧⌘-click	Force-quit the application and start it again
Middle-click	The same as ⇧-click
⌃-click	The context menu, as everywhere else in macOS

The combinations are uBar’s, so the muscle memory carries across.

A gesture that means nothing on the cell under the pointer does nothing. ⇧-clicking a folder will not open it, and ⌘-clicking the Apps Menu has nowhere to go. Only ⌘-click reaches a folder, a file or the Trash.

Clicking a running application

Clicking an application you are already in steps to its next window rather than hiding it, when it has more than one.

Clicking a running application that has no windows open — or whose windows are all minimised, which on macOS still leaves the application running — opens one, the way the real Dock does. It asks LaunchServices to open the application rather than merely activating it, which is what carries the reopen event.

Dragging

Drag	Reorder
Drag off the bar	Unpin
Drag an app in from Finder	Pin it
⌘ while dragging	Move-only: the item cannot be dropped off the bar by accident
Drop files on an app	Open them with it
Drop files on the Trash	Trash them

Everything in the bar reorders, in both item styles. Pinned items keep their order on disk. Running applications that are not pinned get a position for the session — drop one among the other running applications and it stays there; drop it into the pinned run and it gets pinned, which is what that gesture means. Window buttons reorder within their own application, and move the whole application when dragged clear of it.

Hold ⌘ while dragging for move-only. That matters when you are rearranging a full-width bar and the pointer keeps leaving it. A press that never became a drag is just a click, so ⌘-drag and ⌘-click never collide.

From the Finder

Finder’s Services menu has an Add to Eskele item: right-click any application, folder or file and it is pinned, without needing the bar visible or on the same screen. It takes several items at once, and says so rather than silently doing nothing when they are all pinned already.

Global keys

Key	Effect	Default
⌃Esc	Open or close the Apps Menu from anywhere — or a key you record	On
⌃⌥⇥	Move focus to the bar, for the arrow keys and VoiceOver — or a key you record	On
⌃⌥D	Show or hide an auto-hiding bar — or a key you record	Off
⌃⌥1…0	Activate the first ten items on the bar — or ⌃⌘, ⌃⇧, ⌃⌥⌘	Off
⇧⌥ (held)	The activity overlay	On
⌃⌥ (held)	Number the first ten items — whichever chord the slot keys use	—

Slot hot keys

⌃⌥1 is the first item on the bar and ⌃⌥0 the tenth. The Apps Menu and any separators are not counted, so the numbers mean the same thing whether or not you have those turned on.

They are off by default: ten global combinations are far likelier to collide with something you already have bound than one is.

Hold ⌃⌥ and the bar tells you which is which. Each of those ten cells takes a small numbered chip on the icon’s inward bottom corner, diagonally opposite the badge so the two never collide. It is a corner rather than the middle of the icon because the question you are asking is “which number is Safari?” — a chip big enough to read comfortably is also big enough to hide the icon that makes the number worth knowing.

The hint needs no permission: the modifiers are read directly rather than monitored, since watching key events would need Accessibility and the hot keys themselves do not.

If ⌃⌥ and a number is already yours, Settings ▸ Behaviour ▸ Keyboard ▸ Keys moves the ten to ⌃⌘, ⌃⇧ or ⌃⌥⌘, and the numbers then appear while that chord is held. Every choice includes ⌃: you hold the chord while looking at the bar, often with the pointer on it, and ⌃-click is only ever the context menu. ⌥⌘ was the obvious other candidate, and ⌥⌘-click is Show Only This.

From the keyboard, and with VoiceOver

⌃⌥⇥ moves focus to the bar — what macOS’s own ⌃F3, Move focus to the Dock, does for the Dock that Eskele hides. It is on by default, under Settings ▸ Behaviour ▸ Keyboard.

Key	Effect
← → (↑ ↓ on a side bar), ⇥ ⇧⇥	Move along the bar. Separators are skipped; the Apps Menu is not
⌘← ⌘→, Home, End	The first or last item
Return or Space	The same as clicking it
⌘Return, ⌥Return, ⇧Return…	The same as ⌘-, ⌥- or ⇧-clicking it
The arrow pointing into the screen, or ⌃Return	Its context menu
Typing a name	Jumps to the item it starts with
Esc, or ⌃⌥⇥ again	Back to the app you were in

Focus starts on the app you were in, and the item it is on gets a ring and its hover label. Opening something hands the keyboard to it; quitting or hiding something leaves it on the bar. While the bar has focus Eskele is the active app, as it is while the Apps Menu is open.

VoiceOver reads the bar as a list and each item as a button — its name, then what the bar draws about it: “Safari, running, active, 3 windows, badge 2”. A folder and the Apps Menu are menu buttons. VoiceOver’s press and context-menu commands work on every item, and its actions for an item include every modifier-click, among them Show Only This and the force relaunch, which are on no menu.

To use ⌃F3 itself, turn off Move focus to the Dock under System Settings ▸ Keyboard ▸ Keyboard Shortcuts ▸ Keyboard, then record it here.

Recording a shortcut

The reveal key, the move-focus key and the Apps Menu’s Custom Shortcut take any combination you record: click the button beside them and press the keys. While it listens Eskele’s own shortcuts are switched off, so you can press the one already assigned to record it again. Escape, or a click anywhere else, leaves things as they were.

Some combinations are refused as you press them, with the reason under the button, and it keeps listening for another try:

• Without ⌃ or ⌘ it is a key you type with — ⌥E is how an é is typed on half the world’s keyboards.
• ⌘ alone, or ⌘⇧, is the front app’s own menu shortcut.
• ⌃ and a single letter moves the cursor in every text field.
• One of macOS’s own shortcuts that is switched on — ⌘Space, ⌃Space, the screenshot keys. Turn it off under System Settings ▸ Keyboard ▸ Keyboard Shortcuts first.
• One of Eskele’s other shortcuts.

Function keys are always accepted.

What cannot be checked is another app’s shortcut: macOS accepts a combination whether or not another app already holds it, and nothing lists what other apps have registered. If a shortcut you recorded does nothing, another app has it — record a different one.

The menu bar item

Everything is on it:

Control	Effect
Settings…	The full preferences window
Hide Menu Bar Icon	Take Eskele out of the menu bar; the Apps Menu’s gear is then the way back
Position	Left, Bottom or Right edge
Size & Style	Scale, rows, span, alignment, and Icons Only vs Icons with Labels
Displays	All displays, only their own windows, or just the one with the menu bar
Order	As Arranged, By Name or By Launch Time
Window Previews	A thumbnail of the window in the hover label
Auto-hide the Bar	Slide it away until the pointer reaches the edge
Reveal Hot Key	⌃⌥D shows or hides the bar from anywhere
Slot Hot Keys	⌃⌥1…0 activate the first ten items
Activity Overlay	Hold ⇧⌥ to read each app’s processor and memory use
Apps Menu	Show the launcher button, what it lists, and the key that opens it
In Full Screen	Always show, reveal on hover, or hide
Show Running Apps	Include running applications that are not pinned
Show Trash	Trash cell on or off
Show Clock	A clock at the far end of the bar
Show Badges	Number badges on the cells that have one
Rename	Right-click any cell: give it the name you want, or reset it
Show Progress	A progress bar across a cell that has something under way
Media Progress	Ask Music, Spotify and VLC where they are in the track
Highlight Attention	Glow a cell when its app puts a dialog up behind your back
Group Pinned Apps	Keep not-running pins together at the leading end, in labelled mode
Add Separator	Insert a divider, then drag it where you want it
Hide System Dock	Suppress the real Dock
Reserve Screen Space	Make maximised windows stop short of the bar
Restore System Dock	Undo that, immediately

Hiding the menu bar icon

General ▸ Show the menu bar icon takes Eskele out of the menu bar for people who keep theirs uncluttered. The Apps Menu’s gear then becomes the way into Settings, so the two cannot both be turned off: whichever one is left is locked on until you bring the other back. Editing settings.json past that check just puts the icon back on the next launch.