App compatibility

Why doesn't Nextline work everywhere?

Nextline reads what you're typing, and where your cursor is, through the same accessibility APIs that power VoiceOver and other assistive tools on macOS. Most apps support this automatically, which is why Nextline works the moment you install it.

A handful of apps draw their own text on screen instead of using a native system text field, often for performance or custom formatting. Those apps don't expose enough for Nextline — or any accessibility-based tool — to find your cursor or insert a suggestion. We can't work around that from our side; it's up to each app's developers to add support for it.

Setting up Nextline in Arc & Dia

Arc and Dia are both built on Chromium, but neither shares exact on-screen text positions with accessibility tools by default — so Nextline falls back to a small floating suggestion window instead of writing inline. Two ways to fix that:

Option 1: Turn on Text Metrics

1. Open chrome://accessibility in Arc or Dia.
2. Turn on Text Metrics.
3. Keep that tab open in the background — pinning it helps it survive.

This setting can reset after restarting the browser or switching Spaces, so you may need to turn it back on occasionally.

Option 2: Launch with an accessibility flag

For a fix that sticks for the whole session, quit the browser and relaunch it from Terminal with:

(swap "Arc" for "Dia" if that's your browser). Inline suggestions then work for the rest of that session, including across Spaces — no tab required.

Tip: save that command as a small app in Script Editor (File → Export → Application) so you can launch it like any other app instead of typing the command each time.