branda Menu
The branda Menu is Branda's macOS status bar app (Branda.app). It gives you a three-column
popover — organizations, brands, assets — that you can open from anywhere. It works on the same
data as branda-cli: nothing here changes how organizations, brands, or assets
are stored or validated.
Opening the app
Branda runs only as an icon in the macOS status bar (menu bar) — it never shows a Dock icon or a regular application window.
- Click the Branda icon in the status bar to open the popover. The search bar is automatically focused so you can start typing right away.
- Click the icon again (or click anywhere outside the popover) to close it. Any click outside — another app's window, the desktop, a second display — closes it on the first click.
- Press ⌘⌥B from any application to open the popover with the search field focused; press it again to close it.
- Press ⌘⌥⇧B to open it already pinned (see below), or to pin one that is already open.
If another application already owns one of those key combinations, Branda leaves it alone and
records a warning on startup (global shortcut unavailable: …, visible when running with
BRANDA_LOG_LEVEL=WARN); the other shortcut still works.
Pinning the popover
The pin button at the right of the header keeps the popover open: while pinned, clicks and drags elsewhere no longer dismiss it, which is what makes dragging files between Finder and Branda comfortable. Click it again to unpin.
- ⌘P toggles the pin from the keyboard while the popover is open.
- The pin lasts only for that popover session: once the popover closes, the next one opens unpinned.
- The menu-bar icon and ⌘⌥B always close the popover, pinned or not.
- Branda's own windows never dismiss the popover, pinned or not: the file picker, the editors, the confirmation overlays, and the Quick Look preview.
Settings
The gear button at the right of the header, beside the pin, opens Branda's settings — or press ⌘, while the popover is open. Escape or the Close button closes it again.
The dialog shows which version you are running on the left, and on the right the two shortcuts that open Branda from anywhere:
| Setting | Default |
|---|---|
| Keyboard shortcut to open branda | ⌘⌥B |
| Keyboard shortcut to open branda pinned | ⌘⌥⇧B |
To change one, click its field (or focus it and press Space) and press the combination you want. It takes effect immediately and survives a restart. Reset puts a shortcut back to its default and is available only while that row has been changed.
Two rules apply, and a combination that breaks one is refused with the reason shown:
- At least two modifiers. A system-wide shortcut outranks every application, so ⌘E would stop that key working everywhere — including inside Branda, where ⌘E edits the selected row.
- The two shortcuts must differ, or one of them could never be reached.
A combination another application already owns is refused the same way. If a shortcut you saved earlier cannot be registered at startup — something else claimed it in the meantime — the gear button shows a warning badge and the row says so, rather than leaving you with a key that quietly does nothing.
Escape while recording cancels the recording and keeps the previous value; it does not close the dialog. Closing the dialog mid-recording does the same.
Quit branda at the bottom left quits the app.
The same two settings can be read and changed from the command line — see branda-cli settings — and a change made there appears here without restarting anything.
Acting on a column from the keyboard
The three buttons at the bottom of each column have keyboard shortcuts. They act on the column you are in — whichever one holds the keyboard focus, whether that focus is on a row or on the column's own action buttons:
| Keys | Action |
|---|---|
| ⌘N | Add — a new organization, brand, or asset, depending on the column |
| ⌘E | Edit the selected row |
| ⌘⌫ | Delete the selected row |
Each does exactly what clicking the corresponding button does, including the confirmation before anything is deleted. Nothing is ever deleted by a single keystroke.
In the Assets column, ⌘N opens the same type menu the + button opens — ↑/↓ to move, Return to choose, Escape to dismiss, or just type the first letters of a type.
A shortcut does nothing at all when:
- the search field has focus, or no column does. There is no "last column" it falls back to, so a keystroke can never act on a column you are not looking at;
- a dialog or confirmation is open, or the text cursor is in a text field — where ⌘⌫ keeps its usual meaning of deleting to the start of the line;
- the Quick Look preview is showing. It covers the popover, so a confirmation behind it could not be read; press SPACE or Escape to close the preview and the shortcuts work again;
- the matching button is disabled — ⌘N in Brands with no organization selected, or ⌘E and ⌘⌫ with no row selected.
These work only while the popover is open; they are not system-wide. Each button's tooltip names its shortcut, and VoiceOver announces it with the action.