How to Retrieve a List of Active Applications in OS X?

Identifying Active Applications in OS X

Question:

Obtain a list of active application bundles, especially GUI applications that the user has initiated, with information beyond the process names.

Answer:

Utilizing Apple's Swift and Cocoa frameworks, it is possible to programmatically retrieve a list of running applications in OS X.

<code class="swift">import Foundation
import AppKit

// Get all running applications
let workspace = NSWorkspace.shared
let applications = workspace.runningApplications

for app in applications {
    print(app)
}</code>

The resulting app object is an NSApplication instance that contains the necessary information, including the desired bundle identifier.

Implementation Details:

• The NSWorkspace class provides access to system-level information about running applications.
• The runningApplications property returns an array of NSApplication instances representing active applications.
• Each NSApplication instance contains a bundleIdentifier property that uniquely identifies the application bundle.

Additional Notes:

• This approach is specific to OS X and utilizes Objective-C and Swift code.
• Similar functionality may be achievable using lower-level C APIs, but the above solution proves sufficient for most scenarios.

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