ClickEffect

A small macOS menu bar app that shows a visual effect at your mouse pointer whenever you click. Handy for screen sharing, demos, and recordings.

• 10 click effects: Ripple, Pulse, Burst, Confetti, Sparks, Chrysanthemum, Crossette, Willow, Ring, Kamuro
• Cursor highlight — persistent glow that follows your cursor
• Drag trail — light dots along your drag path
• Separate colors for left and right clicks
• Adjustable size and speed
• Juice options: hue/size/rotation randomness and combo boost
• Launch at login
• Menu bar only (no Dock icon)

Requirements

• macOS 13 (Ventura) or later
• Accessibility permission (macOS asks on first launch)

Build

./build-app.sh

The built app is build/ClickEffect.app.

For a Universal (Intel + Apple Silicon) build:

./build-app.sh --universal

Install

1. Drag build/ClickEffect.app into /Applications.
2. Open it from Spotlight or Launchpad.
3. macOS will ask for Accessibility permission — grant it in System Settings → Privacy & Security → Accessibility, then relaunch the app if needed.

Note: "Launch at Login" requires the app to live in /Applications (or ~/Applications).

Usage

Click the menu bar icon (cursorarrow.rays):

• Enabled — toggle the effect on/off
• Settings… — open the settings window
• Launch at Login — start ClickEffect automatically on login
• Quit ClickEffect

Settings

Section	Controls
Click Effect	Style picker, left/right click colors, size, speed
Cursor	Cursor highlight toggle + size, drag trail toggle
Juice	Hue/size/rotation randomness, combo boost

Distribution (Gatekeeper workaround)

ClickEffect is ad-hoc signed, not notarized. When a coworker receives the .app and opens it for the first time, macOS will refuse with "ClickEffect cannot be opened because the developer cannot be verified."

To bypass this, once:

1. In Finder, right-click (or Control-click) the app → Open.
2. In the confirmation dialog, click Open.

After that, it launches normally from Spotlight, Dock, etc.

If the app was downloaded via a browser and .app has the quarantine attribute, another option is:

xattr -dr com.apple.quarantine /Applications/ClickEffect.app

Uninstall

1. Quit ClickEffect from the menu bar.
2. Delete /Applications/ClickEffect.app.
3. (Optional) Remove it from System Settings → Privacy & Security → Accessibility.

Development

Source layout:

Sources/ClickEffect/
  main.swift              # entry point + CLI args
  AppDelegate.swift       # wiring
  EventTap.swift          # CGEventTap for mouse clicks, moves, and drags
  OverlayController.swift # per-screen overlay management
  OverlayWindow.swift     # borderless, click-through NSWindow
  StatusItemController.swift  # menu bar UI
  SettingsStore.swift     # UserDefaults-backed ObservableObject
  SettingsView.swift      # SwiftUI settings form
  SettingsWindow.swift    # NSWindow wrapping the SwiftUI view
  LoginItemManager.swift  # SMAppService wrapper
  Effects/
    ClickEffect.swift     # protocol + EffectConfig + EffectKind
    RippleEffect.swift
    PulseEffect.swift
    BurstEffect.swift
    ConfettiEffect.swift
    SparksEffect.swift
    ChrysanthemumEffect.swift
    CrossetteEffect.swift
    WillowEffect.swift
    RingEffect.swift
    KamuroEffect.swift

Signing (recommended, one-time)

By default the app is ad-hoc signed, which means macOS treats every rebuild as a new app and you must re-grant Accessibility permission each time. To avoid this, create a local self-signed certificate:

./setup-signing.sh   # one-time setup

After this, ./build-app.sh automatically uses the certificate and Accessibility permission persists across rebuilds.

Build pipeline

The build pipeline is plain SwiftPM:

• swift build — debug build for development
• ./build-app.sh — assembles build/ClickEffect.app
• swift Tools/generate-icon.swift — regenerate Resources/AppIcon.iconset from the SF Symbol (run once; files are checked in)

License

MIT