PODIUM

A window switcher and positioner for macOS, built entirely on public Accessibility and CoreGraphics APIs.

---

One hotkey (⌥⇥) opens Podium — a flat, searchable list of every window. Pick one, confirm, and it drops you into Loop mode: a radial menu that positions that window on screen, mouse or keyboard, with a live preview and instant commit.

Unlike snap tools (Rectangle), always-on tilers (AeroSpace, yabai) or switchers (AltTab), PODIUM combines switch + position into one continuous gesture — no private frameworks, no SIP disabling, no event taps. Every window move goes through AXUIElementSetAttributeValue, nothing else.

How it works

Podium — three ways to pick a window, freely mixable: arrow keys, typing to filter, or hovering the real window on its real monitor (a click there confirms like Enter). The active window is pre-selected on open and gets a live highlight + brief raise so you can see it.

By default, Enter/click open Loop mode and ⌘↵/double-click just switch focus — flip a setting to swap which is which. In either mode, Space checks a window for Auto-Arrange: check two or more, then Enter tiles them across every connected monitor, proportional to screen area.

Loop mode — confirming a selection opens a radial ring on the window's monitor. Move the mouse into a quadrant (it follows you across monitors too) or use the keyboard:

Keys	Action
← → ↑ ↓ (repeat cycles)	edge: half → third → two-thirds
U I J K (repeat cycles)	corners: ½ → ⅓ → ⅔
E / ⇧E	more positions (center-half/-third, quarter-stripes)
F / right-click	cycle fill: solo → 3 largest neighbors → all neighbors
M A H W C	maximize / almost-maximize / full height / full width / center
Z / ⇧Z	minimize / minimize others
X	hide app · S / ⇧S stash / unstash · ⌘Z undo
1–9	throw to display N · ⇥ / ⇧⇥ neighbor display
↵ or click anywhere	commit · esc back to the stage

Haptic feedback on every zone change; Escape backs out untouched.

Features

• Fill neighbors — an edge/corner placement can fill the rest of the display with other windows too, live-cycled with F/right-click: solo → 3 largest → all, auto-grid, with a live preview of every window that would move.
• Linked edges — no modifier key needed: drag a real window's edge slowly and its real neighbors resize with it; drag fast and they're left alone. Speed is sampled live and gated through hysteresis (separate engage/disengage thresholds, so it never flickers right at the cutoff), with a live ghost-preview plus a border glow on the dragged window before you let go. Hold ⌃ (Control) to force linking regardless of speed. Neighbors are found geometrically on every resize, not from stale bookkeeping — works for windows arranged by PODIUM or dragged into place by hand.
• Drag-to-edge snap — drag a window to a screen edge on the real desktop and it snaps like Aero Snap, independent of the overlay.
• Configurable direct hotkeys — bind any layout (halves, thirds, corners, maximize, undo, monitor throw) to its own global shortcut, no overlay needed. Settings → Hotkeys.
• Per-window actions on the stage — ⌘M minimize, ⌘H hide app, ⌘⌫ close, or right-click a tile for a full menu including quitting.
• Layout presets — save an arrangement per monitor setup (fingerprinted by screen names + resolutions), auto-restored on dock/undock. "Apply and launch apps" starts anything missing first.
• App groups — define named app groups in Settings → Apps; Auto-Arrange keeps every checked window from the same group on one monitor.
• Wake restore — the last known-good arrangement re-applies itself after sleep/wake or a display reconnect.
• Floating apps — Finder and System Settings (configurable) are never tiled, just centered.
• Monitor number badges — a Liquid Glass badge (macOS 26+, translucent fallback) marks each display's number while the overlay is open.

Install

Build from source (requires Xcode command line tools, macOS 14+):

git clone https://github.com/cowhen/podium.git
cd podium
./build.sh
open Podium.app

Or grab Podium-*.zip from the releases. Release builds are ad-hoc signed: macOS will warn on first launch — right-click → Open once.

Permissions

PODIUM needs two permissions, requested on first launch:

• Accessibility — to read and move windows (the entire mechanism).
• Screen Recording — for the window thumbnails only. Without it you get app icons instead.

Note for developers: build.sh signs with a persistent self-signed identity (ScrollWM Local) if present, so TCC grants survive rebuilds. With ad-hoc signing you must re-grant permissions after every build.

Configuration

Everything lives in the Settings window (menu bar icon → Einstellungen):

• Allgemein — interaction model (switch-first vs. position-first), default Loop-mode fill mode, auto-minimize, auto-apply layouts, drag-to-edge.
• Hotkeys — the Podium activation shortcut plus a global shortcut per layout, bind or clear.
• Darstellung — grouping, tile size, per-monitor accent colors.
• Apps — ignored apps, floating apps, app groups.
• Layouts — saved per-setup arrangements, with "apply and launch apps".

Or edit ~/.config/podium/config.json directly: ignore lists by app name, bundle id or title pattern; floating apps; app groups.

Development

swift test        # pure-logic tests: layout math, linked-edges geometry,
                   # drag-speed hysteresis, loop-action frames, window history
./build.sh         # release build + app bundle + signing

The interaction core is split into small, pure, fully unit-tested modules with no AppKit/Accessibility dependency — Layout, BentoLayout, LoopEngine, LinkedEdges.computeNeighborUpdates, LinkedEdgeVelocity — each wired to the real window server by a thin AX layer (AX.swift, WindowManager.swift). OverlayController orchestrates the stage and Loop mode on top of that.

License

GPLv2 — see LICENSE.