Flashing/Highlighting Issue with Workspace Switching (sketchybar + aerospace)

[LukasSefcik]

I am using sketchybar with the aerospace window manager. I have a sketchybar item configured to display the current workspace. When switching workspaces (e.g., using aerospace's keybindings), I observe a flickering or multiple highlight/unhighlight cycles on both the newly active and the previously active workspace items in sketchybar.

This behavior is not consistent and sometimes results in the wrong workspace being momentarily highlighted or a visual "blink" effect on the workspace items.

Expected Behavior:

When switching workspaces, only the newly active workspace item in sketchybar should be highlighted, and the previously active workspace item should be unhighlighted, with a single, clean transition.

Environment:

• sketchybar version: sketchybar-v2.22.1
• aerospace version: v0.18.5-Beta
• macOS version: 15.4.1

My spaces.sh:

#!/bin/bash

sketchybar --add event aerospace_workspace_change

for sid in $(aerospace list-workspaces --all); do
    sketchybar --add item space.$sid left \
               --subscribe space.$sid aerospace_workspace_change \
               --set space.$sid \
                     icon=$sid \
                     icon.font="SF Pro:Regular:14.0" \
                     background.border_color=0xffffa500 \
                     background.border_width=1 \
                     background.color=0x44ffffff \
                     background.corner_radius=5 \
                     background.height=22 \
                     background.drawing=off \
                     label.font="sketchybar-app-font:Regular:13.0" \
                     click_script="aerospace workspace $sid" \
                     script="$PLUGIN_DIR/space_windows.sh $sid"
done

My space_windows.sh:

#!/bin/bash

space_number=$1

windows=$(aerospace list-windows --workspace "$space_number")

icon_strip=""
label_padding_right=4

if [ -n "$windows" ]; then
    while read -r window; do
        app=$(echo "$window" | cut -d'|' -f2 | xargs)
        if [ -n "$app" ]; then
            icon="$($CONFIG_DIR/plugins/icon_map_fn.sh "$app")"
            icon_strip+=" $icon"
        fi
    done <<< "$windows"
else
    icon_strip=""
    label_padding_right=0
fi

if [ -z "$FOCUSED_WORKSPACE" ]; then
    FOCUSED_WORKSPACE=$(aerospace list-workspaces --focused)
fi

if [ "$space_number" = "$FOCUSED_WORKSPACE" ]; then
    sketchybar --set "$NAME" background.drawing=off \
                             icon.color=0xffffffff \
                             label.color=0xffffffff \
                             label="$icon_strip" \
                             label.padding_left=0 \
                             label.padding_right=$label_padding_right
else
    sketchybar --set "$NAME" background.drawing=off \
                             icon.color=0x70ffffff \
                             label.color=0x50ffffff \
                             label="$icon_strip" \
                             label.padding_left=0 \
                             label.padding_right=$label_padding_right
fi

Screen.Recording.2025-05-12.at.16.43.37.mov

[chieffancypants]

I have the same issue, though I'm thinking it's related to aerospace. If you pull sketchybar out of the equation completely and just log the exec-on-workspace-change callback, you'll see that it's called just once when switching between working spaces, but doing so between the glitchy spaces it will be called twice causing the flicker.

In my case it seems to be fairly consistently broken when switching between a spaces with Arc Browser, and Ghostty.