Props to @sleepingNomad here, who has done 16 releases in the last 7 hours, incorporating feedback from HN on the fly!<p>* Don't like menubar apps? you you can run it as a normal app<p>* Don't like GUIs? Now you can run it on the command line<p>Just look at that Changelog:<p><a href="https://github.com/darrylmorley/whatcable/releases?page=2" rel="nofollow">https://github.com/darrylmorley/whatcable/releases?page=2</a>
Thanks! HN gave me great bug reports and feature requests. Claude helped me ship fast. 16 releases in 7 hours is a lot easier with a decent pair programmer.
Quite impressive, indeed. OP/sleepingNomad, can I have this on MacPorts, please? Thank you.
Cool. Just want to chime in that I wanted to see how quickly GPT-5.5 can turn this into a KDE Plasma 6 Plasmoid. Took about 10 minutes and two dollars, and now I have a nice QML app showing the same information in my taskbar.<p>Just wanted to say this because I feel it's really crazy that I can just do this today...
This is pretty nice, but why do a lot of Mac apps insist on living in the menu bar?
Agreed, especially for something like this that might get used a handful of times (I’m assuming most people don’t have myriad cables or want to check them regularly?)<p>The problem of course is that on my 14” screen the area to the right of the notch is already close to full and I don’t even have that many things there…
It works for me, but I understand for others it might not. So, there's now a "Show in menu bar" toggle in Settings. Turn it off and WhatCable runs as a regular Dock app with a normal window instead.
Making 1 click to access is faster than typing the app name in finder. Dock is usually full and used for different type of apps. Makes also constantly visible output possible with standard ui patterns.
And ‘every’ Mac developer thinks people will want to run their tool all the time.<p>For this kind of read-only tool, I doubt that’s the case. A regular application probably serves most users better.<p>Also, if you want users to have the option of permanently displaying this kind of info, a desktop widget (<a href="https://developer.apple.com/documentation/widgetkit" rel="nofollow">https://developer.apple.com/documentation/widgetkit</a>) may be a better option than a menu bar item.
> Dock is usually full<p>My menu bar is also full and, unlike the Dock, I can’t resize it to fit more.
OK, thanks. We understand what a menu bar is.<p>How is this conducive to the typical usage pattern of an app like this?
For some reason the app supports a separate standalone window mode as well [0]. It's not clear why the developer took the trouble to support two different modes when the menubar mode doesn't seem to add anything (like a live-updating icon for throughput).<p>Well, I can think of one reason why it wasn't that much more trouble. François Chollet had a nice tweet [1] on why removing human cognitive friction is resulting in needless software complexity.<p>[0] <a href="https://github.com/darrylmorley/whatcable/blob/main/Sources/WhatCable/App.swift" rel="nofollow">https://github.com/darrylmorley/whatcable/blob/main/Sources/...</a><p>[1] <a href="https://x.com/fchollet/status/2045929951539707957" rel="nofollow">https://x.com/fchollet/status/2045929951539707957</a>
Are you saying you wish this was a desktop app and you would just open it occasionally when curious?<p>If so, it feels like a needlessly indirect and combative way to go about it.
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oh no you're right, my menu bar is full already.
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I tried to contribute back adapter current Wattage display to stats, but I got my PR closed without comment. It is similar to this:<p><a href="https://github.com/exelban/stats/pull/3024" rel="nofollow">https://github.com/exelban/stats/pull/3024</a>
Thanks for creating this. I'm blind so the $16 USB tester off amazon to sort through my drawer of cables is not an option. This will stop me from needing to buy a sbc just so I have something running Linux to test cables.
I love that this is a native mac app. Thanks for building this, and thanks for sharing.
Clean execution. The "tiny menu bar app" framing is exactly
where I'm trying to land my own scope right now.<p>What was the hardest thing you cut to keep it tiny? I keep
adding "one more useful thing" and have to talk myself down.
can something like this be done for linux? maybe a wrapper for lsusb. I just found <a href="https://github.com/doug-gilbert/lsucpd" rel="nofollow">https://github.com/doug-gilbert/lsucpd</a> which adds PD and more.
Doesn't work for me. Says "No USB-C ports detected", although I'm pretty sure my monitor is connected via USB-C, and the monitor also has a built-in USB hub where my USB keyboard is connected to.
I remember seeing a recent analysis where the vast majority of cables from Amazon misreported their capabilities. Is this tool going to be able to catch those, or blindly report what the chip advertises?
I think for real cables the delta could also be explained by damage or just a bad plug-in attempt, so even if you're not trying to detect counterfeit cables it could be useful to know:<p>1. What does the host support<p>2. What does the cable support<p>3. What does the device support<p>4. What actually got negotiated
Pretty cool. What I don't understand is why both my USB@1 and USB@2 show the same connected devices. I'd expect to only see the respective devices. USB@1 is my USB-hub monitor, the other one is connected to my phone. Both show keyboard, etc. plus my phone as connected devices.
Could it be just a console utility?
Yeah I like the sound of the functionality but I don't like the idea of it taking up menu bar space. Console utility would be good or even a gui that can be quickly launched through spotlight
> I don't like the idea of it taking up menu bar space<p>You know you can close it? :-)
You might like Ice:
<a href="https://github.com/jordanbaird/Ice" rel="nofollow">https://github.com/jordanbaird/Ice</a>
I'll look into this.
Good stuff, but it's telling me that my USB-C Thunderbolt cable has been plugged in upside down but the connector handled this. I was not aware that you can plug in something into USB-C upside down!
I wasn't either (insomuch as I had never thought about it), but it makes sense if you think about it for a second. If you have one end plugged in one way, and the other end plugged in the other way, each individual wire is flipped from where it should be. The fact that you _can_ plug it in either way means that the device on one end needs to be capable of recognizing that and logically reversing it. Same as automatic crossover in Ethernet.<p>That's all the program is telling you. It doesn't matter that it's backwards, but technically it is.
What does it mean to be ‘upside down’ if the connector handles both orientations?
This has been fixed now, apologies.
I would like to ask an LLM to rewrite it as Python CLI script. Is it even possible, or some Swift-only functionality is necessary?<p>P.S. Some time ago I learnt through HN of a one-line command in macOS which revealed the power (Wattage) of the connected charger. Can't find it now, but it was very useful.
Python script that Claude Code wrote and I tweaked for peeking at marked USB-C cables: <a href="https://github.com/nhecker/usb-e-marker" rel="nofollow">https://github.com/nhecker/usb-e-marker</a><p>Gist of random (human-written) power-related commands to peek at random power info: <a href="https://gist.github.com/nhecker/8e850773ff229724ce361967cc227d27" rel="nofollow">https://gist.github.com/nhecker/8e850773ff229724ce361967cc22...</a><p>For your last point, you're probably looking for something like `ioreg -raw0 -c AppleSmartBattery | plutil -extract 0.PowerTelemetryData.SystemPowerIn raw -` (The source for that last command is from the above gist: <a href="https://gist.github.com/nhecker/8e850773ff229724ce361967cc227d27#print-power-from-the-power-adapter-in-mw" rel="nofollow">https://gist.github.com/nhecker/8e850773ff229724ce361967cc22...</a> ) Or maybe `pmset -g ac | head -n3` is helpful, too. HTH.<p>_nick<p>(edit1: formatting)<p>(edit2: there's also <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47677607">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47677607</a> which seems pretty cool but is quite complex, and might be overkill)<p>(edit3: different method for printing adapter wattage)
`system_profiler SPPowerDataType | grep "Wattage"`?
14 Inch 2021 MBPro / M1 Pro chip / Sonoma 14.5<p>WhatCable says "No USB-C Ports Detected".<p>System info clearly shows my iPhone attached to USB 3.1 Bus.
I am definitely gonna contribute or fork to create an open leaderboard of cable brands and quality :D
Tangential, but LLT recently came out with their own lineup of USB-C cables guaranteed to be up to spec. And they have the main specs printed on each cable end, so you know what you grab.<p>That should be mandatory.
TIL, and they look great indeed. Shame they are all sold out except for <= 0.3m lengths. <a href="https://global.lttstore.com/products/ltt-truespec-cable-usb-type-c-to-c" rel="nofollow">https://global.lttstore.com/products/ltt-truespec-cable-usb-...</a>
You mean LTT ?
I'll only buy them if they have gold connectors, those are the fastest. /s
Cool ! Would love a brew installation as well
oh my god, this is going to change my life if it works.
Any plans to support installations through Homebrew?
I like the idea and thanks for sharing, but I do think folks who vibe code or use Claude should take their time using, testing, and improving app before rushing to share. This was pushed/deved like 2 hours ago
And it's been updated, with full releases, many times since.<p>I like this tool, but I agree that it was rushed and it is <i>still</i> being rushed. I urge the developer to slow down and get it right.
Just because it got pushed 2h ago it doesn't mean they didn't test it on their end.
Great project. It would be even better if it supported platforms other than Mac.
The 'plugged upside down' is weird for a USB-cable. Especially as that doesn't work. I tried plugging it 'the other way around' and it showed the same 'upside down' warning
Nice!
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I get that the connectors are identical but I find it odd that people find it so challenging. Thunderbolt is the thick and short cable. If it's not thick it's not gonna work well and if it's over a metre it's not gonna work well. cf my pile of thin long "basic" usb c cables.
How do you define "thick" or "short" to a non-engineer/tech person? Relative to what exactly?
Thunderbolt 4 passive (over usb) is 0.8m in length, longer cables are active, up to two meters I think, so they do exist.
Great, and what about non-Thunderbolt cables? How do I distinguish between power only, USB 2, USB 2+PD, and USB 3.2 cables? I've got a whole pile of cables that, without my Treedix tester, are indistinguishable re: functionality and support.