SpinWin - macOS menubar app to visually rotate or spin any window
Show HN: SpinWin – A macOS menu bar app to visually rotate or spin any window
SpinWin is a creative macOS menubar utility that visually rotates or spins any application window, overcoming the lack of a public API for this feature. By cleverly combining ScreenCaptureKit and Accessibility APIs, it hides the original window off-screen, captures its live buffer, and displays a rotated overlay. Users can apply preset angles, continuous spins, or free rotation with simple clicks. While the overlay is not interactive, it offers a unique visual experience for presentations or fun, all without compromising system integrity or requiring private API calls.
macOS has no public API to rotate another app's window, so SpinWin fakes it by hiding the source, capturing its buffer with ScreenCaptureKit, and drawing a live, rotated overlay.
- gwynforthewyn
This reminds me of when wobbly windows were the big thing in linux. It was good plain fun back then, it seems fun again with this.
Drawing apps do regularly allow for canvas rotation, so I’m sure this’ll turn out to be useful for some class of application that I’m not considering.
- mortenjorck
I’ve been building a window manger for macOS that involves hiding windows offscreen, but I’ve found AccessibilityKit clamps position writes at the screen edge, so I’ve had to settle for allowing a 1px-wide sliver (plus shadow) in the corner. Is that what you’re doing too, or did you find an alternative?
- lagrange77
Very handy.