Opta

Hold Option. Pick a window. Let go.

opta.romn.dev · Download

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Opta is a native macOS window switcher for people who want Option-based cycling:

• Option + Tab cycles through visible windows from all applications.
• Option + ` cycles through visible windows from the current application.
• Add Shift to either shortcut to cycle backward.
• Release Option to activate the selected window.
• Press Escape to dismiss the switcher without activating anything.
• Hover a tile to select it.
• Click a tile to activate that window immediately.
• Use the menu bar item to toggle current-application cycling or Launch at Login.

The switcher shows live window previews when Screen Recording permission is available, then falls back to the application icon. Each tile includes the window title, application name, and app icon.

Download

Grab the latest build from Releases — a universal build that runs on Apple Silicon and Intel — unzip it, and move Opta.app to your Applications folder. Each release note says whether that build is notarised by Apple; an unnotarised one needs its quarantine flag cleared before macOS will open it, and the release note gives the command.

Building from source avoids that entirely.

Requirements

• macOS 14 or newer
• Xcode 26 or newer, or the matching Command Line Tools
• Accessibility permission for window activation
• Input Monitoring permission for global keyboard capture
• Screen Recording permission for window previews

Build

swift test
./scripts/build_app.sh
open .build/release/Opta.app

The build script creates .build/release/Opta.app and signs it with a self-signed certificate it keeps in its own keychain, so the bundle has a stable identity and macOS does not drop its permissions between builds. That certificate never leaves the machine, which is why a build made this way cannot be handed to anyone else.

Landing page

Live at opta.romn.dev, served by GitHub Pages from the docs folder on main. Editing docs/index.html and pushing to main redeploys it.

The domain is a CNAME from opta to romankhadka.github.io in the romn.dev zone, and docs/CNAME is what tells Pages to answer on it. Deleting that file would drop the site back to romankhadka.github.io/opta/.

The page carries an interactive switcher demo built from the shipped Quiet Glass tokens, so the panel on the page is the panel in the app, down to the tile geometry and the light and dark palettes.

Releases

Tagging a commit vX.Y.Z and pushing the tag runs .github/workflows/release.yml, which tests, builds, packages, and publishes the zip to a GitHub release.

Without a Developer ID the workflow signs the app ad-hoc. It runs, but macOS quarantines the download and treats each release as a different app, so permissions have to be granted again after every update. CI cannot use the self-signed local identity instead: creating it calls security add-trusted-cert, which waits on an authorisation prompt that a runner can never answer.

To make those downloads open without a Gatekeeper warning, add these repository secrets; the workflow signs and notarises only when they are all present, and falls back to the ad-hoc build otherwise.

Secret	What it holds
MACOS_CERTIFICATE_P12	base64 of a Developer ID Application .p12
MACOS_CERTIFICATE_PASSWORD	the password for that .p12
APPLE_ID	the Apple ID that owns the developer account
APPLE_TEAM_ID	the ten-character team identifier
APPLE_APP_PASSWORD	an app-specific password for notarisation

Icon

The application icon is the Option key glyph on a blue steel field, kept in Resources/Opta.icon as an Icon Composer document. build_app.sh compiles it into the appearance-aware Assets.car that macOS 26 renders in Default, Dark, Tinted, and Clear, plus an .icns for macOS 14 and 15.

./scripts/preview_icon.sh

That renders all six appearances to .build/icon-preview. It also fails if the Dark rendition stops drawing the mark in white — the background colour and the mark's colour are linked by a system rule that the design spec explains.

Permissions

On first launch, Opta asks macOS for Accessibility, Input Monitoring, and Screen Recording access. If the prompts do not appear, use the menu bar icon:

• Open Accessibility Settings
• Open Input Monitoring Settings
• Open Screen Recording Settings

After enabling any permission, relaunch Opta so macOS applies the change.

Current-application cycling

Option + ` is also the macOS grave-accent dead key used to type characters such as à, è, ì, ò, and ù. If you type those, open the Opta menu bar icon and turn off **Cycle Current App (⌥)**; the dead key then passes through to the focused app. Option+Tab` cycling is unaffected. The choice is remembered across launches.

Launch at Login

Use the Opta menu bar icon and choose Launch at Login. macOS may require approval in System Settings > General > Login Items; if the menu item shows a mixed state, open Login Items Settings from the same menu and approve Opta.

Notes

Opta is intentionally small and native. It uses:

• CGWindowListCopyWindowInfo to discover visible windows.
• ScreenCaptureKit to capture window preview images.
• SMAppService.mainApp to register the app as a launch-at-login item.
• Accessibility APIs to focus and raise the selected window.
• IOKit HID access to request Input Monitoring for keyboard capture.
• A session event tap to intercept Option + Tab and Option + `.

Windows are ordered by most recent use. Opta records focus changes as they happen — windows it activates itself, application switches (Dock, Cmd+Tab), and focused-window changes inside each application — and falls back to the system window list's front-to-back order for windows it has never seen focused. The first key press starts on the second window in that order, so the frontmost window is skipped unless you cycle back to it. Minimized and hidden windows are excluded. Windows from Opta itself are excluded.

License

MIT