Popups open far below the bar on a notched display when their shadow is large #643

What happens

On a MacBook's built-in display (with a notch), a theme with a large popup shadow makes popups open far below the bar. With popupDefaults.shadowRadius: 24, bar.height: 52 and bar.margin: 6, the More widgets tray (⋯) opens 36 pt below the bar instead of 6 pt. Widget popups are placed the same way and drop by the same amount.

On an external display whose menu bar hides, the same configuration opens the tray 6 pt below the bar.

Steps to reproduce

1. On a Mac with a notch, keep the bar at the top and use a theme or configuration with:

   {
     "bar": { "height": 52, "margin": 6 },
     "popupDefaults": { "shadowColor": "#00000080", "shadowRadius": 24 }
   }

2. Put more widgets on the right than fit, so the More widgets button (⋯) shows.
3. Click ⋯ on the built-in display.

Expected

The tray opens 6 pt below the bar, as it does on a display without the notch strip.

Environment

• StableBar 0.15.0
• macOS 27.2
• MacBook built-in Retina display, 1512 × 982 pt: frame.maxY 1440, visibleFrame.maxY 1408 (a 32 pt strip at the top)
• External Dell U2722D, 2560 × 1440, with visibleFrame equal to frame: not affected

Evidence

• The visible bar ends 46 pt from the top of the screen (52 − 6). The tray's window starts 50 pt above its visible edge for the shadow (shadowRadius × 2 + 2), so StableBar places the window's top 2 pt from the top of the screen (46 + 6 − 50).
• A standalone borderless NSPanel at .floating, given that frame on the built-in display, sits 32 pt from the top once ordered front. That moves it 30 pt down, which leaves the tray 36 pt below the bar. A subclass that returns frameRect from constrainFrameRect(_:to:) stays where it was put. On the Dell, neither moves.
• The tray in a screenshot of the running bar sits 82 pt from the top of the screen, which matches 32 + 50.

Diagnosis

On main (000007e):

• WidgetPopup.openTooltip (Sources/StableBar/WidgetPopup.swift:466-484) pads the popup by shadowInset = shadowRadius * 2 + 2 and places the window at edge - size.height - 6 + shadowInset. WidgetPopup.open (:574) does the same for widget popups. With a large shadow, the window's transparent top margin reaches into the menu bar strip, while the visible popup stays below the bar.
• AppKit's constrainFrameRect(_:to:) moves a window whose top is above screen.visibleFrame.maxY down to it when the window is shown. PopupPanel (WidgetPopup.swift:5) and the popup's shadow window (a plain NSPanel from makeShadowWindow, :967) don't override it. The windows that live in that strip do: BarPanel (StableBarApp.swift:211), PassiveBarPanel, BarEditControls and BarEditAddPopover.
• The constraint applies only on a display whose visibleFrame stops below its top, such as a built-in display with a notch. It doesn't apply when the menu bar hides there and visibleFrame equals frame. Themes with the default shadowRadius (2) leave the window's top below the strip, so they're unaffected.

Related

• Popups with a shadow get a dark outline floating outside their edge #180 added the separate shadow window behind popups. That's a different problem (an outline around the popup), but the shadow window needs the same fix.
• A bar below the macOS menu bar sits partly under it, with one offset for every display #451 and fix: keep a bar below the menu bar clear of it on every display #468 are about where the bar itself goes below the menu bar, not about popups.

Triaged by Claude Code (Claude Opus 5.5).