lenohard / menubar

a menubar with Zero latency access to ChatGPT/Bard/Claude! A/B test them, or use them in the background. I use this 20 times a day.

👼 smol menubar

This is a smol menubar app that helps you quickly access ChatGPT (defaults to GPT4), Bing and Anthropic Claude 2 with a single keyboard shortcut (Cmd+Shift+G). (we also support Bard and Claude 1, but hide by default)

(click for video demo)

whatever is typed at the bottom is entered into all windows simultaneously, however if you wish to explore one further than the other you can do so independently since they are just webviews. See video demo

seeking contributors!

please see https://github.com/smol-ai/menubar/blob/main/CONTRIBUTING.md

Download and Setup

You can download the precompiled binaries for MacOS: https://github.com/smol-ai/menubar/releases/latest (sometimes Apple marks these as untrusted/damaged, just open them up in Applications and right-click-open to run it. Or run it from source (instructions below)

The first run creates a desktop shortcut. After the initial setup, you can simply use the generated desktop file to start the application in the future.

When you first run the app, log into your google and/or microsoft account (once you log into your google account for chatgpt, you'l also be logged in to Bard). For Bing, after you log in to your Microsoft account, you'll need to refresh to get into the Bing Chat screen. It's a little finnicky at first try but it works.

usage

• I usually just always press Cmd+Shift+G -> quick open to use it and Cmd+Enter to submit.
• You can resize the overall window with a click n drag. Cmd+1/2/3/A/+/- or drag to resize the internal webviews as you wish.
• You can also enable/disable models from the preferences modal and your choice is persisted. We support ChatGPT, Bing, Bard, Claude 1/2.
• To start a new conversation, cmd+R (simple window refresh, nothing special)

You can modify these keyboard shortcuts if you build it from source.

Login for Anthropic via Google SSO is broken right now - it requires a popup which is blocked at least in my testing. Would welcome a PR to fix that, but for now just use regular email + login token, it works fine (dont include the extra space at the end from their email!).

video demo

• original version https://youtu.be/jrlxT1K4LEU
• Jun 1 version https://youtu.be/ThfFFgG-AzE
• https://twitter.com/swyx/status/1658403625717338112
• https://twitter.com/swyx/status/1663290955804360728?s=20
• July 11 version https://twitter.com/swyx/status/1678944036135260160

build from source

If you want to build from source, you will need to clone the repo and open the project folder:

1. Clone the repository and navigate to the project folder:

   git clone https://github.com/smol-ai/menubar.git
   cd menubar
   npm install
   # On Windows, you may also need Squirrel:
   # npm install electron-squirrel-startup

2. Generate binaries:

   npm run make # or npm run build. # npm run buildAndSign is for swyx to publish the official codesigned and notarized releases

   The outputs will be located in the /out/make directory. Note that it will start minimized in your taskbar; you'll need to click the icon to use it:

windows/linux builds

by default we're mac only - i only have a mac sorry. (we are seeking a "Windows Maintainer"! and someone to help make this work on Arch Linux)

i think you can run

electron-forge make --platform=win32 --arch=ia32,x64

and it might work? let us know and i'd happily take a PR to include it in the default make process.

why use/make this?

Google dropped its waitlist for Bard recently, so now there is some reason to try it out.

People have bad first impressions on Bard, but in May 2023 it has been receiving some positive feedback:

• https://twitter.com/masadfrost/status/1655802654927507457?s=46&t=90xQ8sGy63D2OtiaoGJuww

• https://twitter.com/amasad/status/1657510601202221056?s=46&t=90xQ8sGy63D2OtiaoGJuww

these folks aren't neutral, but its clear of course that Bard will be better for some things than others, and we might as well lower the barrier for trying them out.

then anthropic dropped 100k context, and at that point i was convinced i need to be A/B testing all 3 to get the benefits/get an intuition of what they each are best at.

Related project

I only later heard about https://github.com/sunner/ChatALL which is cool but I think defaulting to a menbuar/webview experience is better - you get to use full features like Code Interpreter and Claude 2 file upload when they come out, without waiting for API