I am writing an application which is capable of running as a regular application – with a GUI, AND as a ‘daemon’ – servicing other GUI based applets. The user is expected to decide in which mode they want to run the application. The questions are: Can this be done? On Windows, I am able to do this by allowing user to ‘install as a service’ and I can programmatically check if the application HAS been started as a service or not – and take the appropriate code path. What is the equivalent in MacOS? On startup, how do I check if the application is being launched in regular mode, or launched as a daemon What are the system interactions which I need to specifically hook into if it is launched as a daemon.

There is an 'open' command in mac with some options as: -g  Do not bring the application to the foreground. -j  Launches the app hidden. While it claims to launch the application hidden and/or in the background – it always seems to behave the same way.  Is there some ‘input’ the application is supposed to receive and behave suitably (that is, not show a UI if it is opened in such a mode)?  How do I access this intent of the user? Thanks !

I am intending to show an alert message in macOS through a C++ based application. I am using CFUserNotificationDisplayAlert for the same. Below is the piece of code that I have used to display the alert window which I have written in the .mm file: CFOptionFlags cfRes; CFUserNotificationDisplayAlert(0, kCFUserNotificationCautionAlertLevel, NULL, NULL, NULL, CFSTR("Message Header"), CFSTR("Message Body"), CFSTR("Ok"), NULL, NULL, &cfRes); The above works fine on Catalina but does not show the alert window in BigSur. Is there anything I am missing ?

I am intending to show an alert message in macOS through a C++ based application. I am using CFUserNotificationDisplayAlert for the same. Below is the piece of code that I have used to display the alert window which I have written in the .mm file: CFOptionFlags cfRes; CFUserNotificationDisplayAlert(0, kCFUserNotificationCautionAlertLevel, NULL, NULL, NULL, CFSTR("Message Header"), CFSTR("Message Body"), CFSTR("Ok"), NULL, NULL, &cfRes); The above works fine on Catalina but does not show the alert window in BigSur. Is there anything I am missing ?

Hi, I have a shared Mac system running on BigSur 11.4 - which I access from office and home. I have a single user id, and do not want the two sessions to interfere with each other. Can I have 2 independent sessions on this Mac machine for the same user ? Basically, I am seeking guidance on ‘what kind of options/settings/helper applications' will allow me to do this. Thanks in advance.

Hi, I am trying to use the open command from the Terminal window to open my application. I have tried the following : open --hide MyApp.app open --background MyApp.app The documentation says : --help launch the app hidden and --background does not bring the application to the foreground. I would like to understand the difference between the two ? What I have observed is, in both cases the application launches and my GUI Window is not in the foreground. Am I missing something ?

I have an application that is built as an app bundle. I open a new terminal window, and launch the application through ./. When I do this, the application UI is launched and some application logs are printed on the terminal. If I want to detach my application process from the terminal, how can the same be achieved such that I can close the terminal and my application keeps running. Basically, how do we ‘detach’ from the parent console once we have detected that we WERE started from the parent console ?

Hi, I would like to be able to tell at any time which mission control workspace the user is currently using programmatically on macOS or programmatically check the number of desktops/workspaces are currently created on a macOS screen. I could not find any working answer during my search. Any workspace identifier works for me (uuid, workspace number...). Is there a programmatic way of doing this in Objective C ? Thank you for the help!

Hi, We are developing a Business Management application for Accounting/Inventory/Invoicing etc. which is capable of being integrated with a reasonably wide variety of 3rd Party document formats – like spreadsheets, and PDF, and ALSO capable of being customized by the end-user to support additional formats.  While the ‘out-of-the-box’ integrations(extensions) can be listed in the info.plist for people to opt to open a particular document type using our application, if they wish to – what do we need to do to allow them to associate their own customized integrations.  For defining the same in plist file, we do this for already defined extensions : <dict> <key>CFBundleTypeName</key> <string>TWDB</string> <key>CFBundleTypeRole</key> <string>Viewer</string> <key>LSHandlerRank</key> <string>Owner</string> <key>LSItemContentTypes</key> <array> <string>com.tw.twdb</string> </array> </dict>

We are building an application that would be cross-platform and hence using CMake as the build system. While am able to build for iOS, macOS, tvOS etc, have not been able to build for watchOS using CMake. Right now, am looking for an independent watchOS app. Can someone help with any pointers or reference link for the same ?

I am building my application for macOS using CMake. My application can either be MACOSX_BUNDLE i.e. generated as a .app through CMake or it can even be a Unix-style executable. Is there a programmatic way in Obj-C to check if the executable is Unix-Style or NSBundle?

I have an 'Independent watchOS' project created in Xcode. To this project, I have linked few static libraries (as xcframework). The architecture is set to 'x86_64'. I am able to successfully build this project and deploy it on the watch simulator. The code inside the static libraries also get called and things work fine. However, when I try to build the same project from command-line, it doesnt work and fails with multiple errors. Command used : xcodebuild -target "TWWatchOSTemplateProj WatchKit App" -configuration Debug -destination 'platform=watchOS Simulator,arch=x86_64' build Error : /Users/abhishek.mohata/TW_Test_Projects/TWKshetrapalNative/TWLibs/TWBrahmaClient.xcframework:1:1: error: While building for watchOS, no library for this platform was found in '/Users/abhishek.mohata/TW_Test_Projects/TWKshetrapalNative/TWLibs/TWBrahmaClient.xcframework'. (in target 'TWWatchOSTemplateProj WatchKit Extension' from project 'TWWatchOSTemplateProj') warning: None of the architectures in ARCHS (x86_64) are valid. Consider setting ARCHS to $(ARCHS_STANDARD) or updating it to include at least one value from VALID_ARCHS (arm64_32, armv7k). (in target 'TWWatchOSTemplateProj WatchKit Extension' from project 'TWWatchOSTemplateProj') error: No profiles for 'com.tally.TWWatchOSTemplateProj.watchkitapp' were found: Xcode couldn't find any iOS App Development provisioning profiles matching 'com.tally.TWWatchOSTemplateProj.watchkitapp'. Automatic signing is disabled and unable to generate a profile. To enable automatic signing, pass -allowProvisioningUpdates to xcodebuild. (in target 'TWWatchOSTemplateProj WatchKit App' from project 'TWWatchOSTemplateProj') warning: ONLY_ACTIVE_ARCH=YES requested with multiple ARCHS and no active architecture could be computed; building for all applicable architectures (in target 'TWWatchOSTemplateProj WatchKit App' from project 'TWWatchOSTemplateProj') ** BUILD FAILED ** When built from command-line, why is the error related to architecture comes while the same works from xcode ? Also, is there anything to be added to the command for signing as the details are already present in the xcodeproj.

I  have an iOS project where my entry point is in Swift and the logic is in C++. Hence, I use a ObjectiveC++ bridge in between. I would be creating Ui programmatically using Swift and there is no usage of storyboard file too. Now, once the 'didFinishLaunching' of the AppDelegate is reached, it calls a Objective C++ method to do the initial setup (core initializations etc). Once things are done, I need to create a UIWindow and attach a ViewController to it. Below is how the code looks : func application(_ application: UIApplication, didFinishLaunchingWithOptions launchOptions: [UIApplication.LaunchOptionsKey: Any]?) -> Bool { // Override point for customization after application launch. NSLog("didFinishLaunching called") MyObjCppWrapper.mySampleObjCppFunc() return true } The ObjCppWrapper class's implementation : @implementation MyObjCppWrapper + (void) mySampleObjCppFunc { [MySampleCreateWindow CreateWindow]; } @end MySampleCreateWindow is a Swift Class which does the work to create the window. Implementation is : @objc class MySampleCreateWindow: NSObject { @objc static func CreateWindow () { var window = UIWindow (frame: UIScreen.main.bounds) window.rootViewController = UINavigationController (rootViewController: ViewController ()) window.makeKeyAndVisible() } } The ViewController just shows a button lets say - code added under 'viewDidLoad'. When I run this application, I get the below error : 2022-09-21 12:55:51.039805+0530 TWSampleiOSWithoutSB01[47488:4493039] Unbalanced calls to begin/end appearance transitions for <UINavigationController: 0x7feb2d019000>. Surprisingly, the code written inside CreateWindow of the MySampleCreateWindow class runs fine if it is pasted inside the didFinishLaunching of the AppDelegate. Any suggestions on what I am doing wrong or should correct ? Please note : Many of the solutions given to this similar error were for Obj-C and different scenarios. Some of them seem to be deprecated now.

In macOS, an application can be launched in hidden mode through the login items i.e. Preference -> Users & Groups -> For any user, Login Items -> Select the application and click on 'Launch as Hidden'. When this user logs into the machine, the selected application would be launched - app icon would be visible in dock panel and application window would not be visible. Application window becomes visible only when the app icon is clicked once. Documentation of all also talks about miniaturizing all windows. I understand miniaturize-all would end up in all windows being minimized. Can an application be launched in such a mode ? In Windows an application can be launched from PowerShell as 'Start-Process -WindowStyle Hidden' or 'Start-Process -WindowStyle Minimized'. For macOS, is there an way to launch an application with miniatured window, either through the OS/App setting or through some command/script. In that case, how is hidden different from miniaturize ? They seem to be similar. Any inputs will help to get clarity on this.

I have a SceneDelegate class which is part of Target 1 code. Target 1 is compiled as a static library. public class SceneDelegate: UIResponder, UIWindowSceneDelegate { public var window: UIWindow? // SceneDigBecomeActive // other lifecycle events } The SceneDelegate is programmatically assigned in the 'configurationForConnecting' of the AppDelegate in Target 1. i.e. config = UISceneConfiguration(name: nil, sessionRole: connectingSceneSession.role) // Set the scene delegate config.delegateClass = SceneDelegate.self Now, I do 'extension SceneDelegate' in Target 2. In this extension, I have put the 'willConnectTo' function definition. Target 2 is also compiled as a static library. extension SceneDelegate { public func scene(_ scene: UIScene, willConnectTo session: UISceneSession, options connectionOptions: UIScene.ConnectionOptions) { // ... } // Also has sceneDidDisconnect } The App Target has Target 1 and Target 2 added under 'Link Binary with Libraries'. Now when the application runs, willConnectTo is never invoked, which was in Target 2. The other code in Target 2 is invoked properly. However the other lifecycle states like SceneDidBecomeActive, sceneDidResignActive etc from Target 1 gets invoked. Is there any limitation as such when using extensions in this manner ?