Hacker News Reader

Comment by helloguillecl | Hacker News Reader

I wonder if the Touch Bar was actually a poorly executed good idea. I've always used a full external keyboard (with numeric pad) but I'd love to have the F16-F19" keys graphically mapping to something depending on the context.

For example, in VS code, I currently have F13 for start debugging and resume. F14 for stepping over, and F15 for stepping into.

I would wish to have a physical F key with a configurable character or emoji. The problem with the Touch Bar was mostly: 1) no physical feedback 2) misplacing the Esc key.

View on HN

It absolutely was.

I use a program called BetterTouchTool on mine, and it turned it from an annoyance into the best streaming deck you can imagine.

Mine consists of shortcuts to webpages, a scroll able section for all my note files, media controls, one touch setting toogles, etc.

Killer feature is using 2 fingers and sliding changes the volume. 3 for screen brightness, 4 for keyboard backlight.

It's genuinely sad how little apple cared about the software for it. It could have been exactly what everyone else in this thread are saying and better.

I think the idea was interesting, but the execution and adoption, ehhh. It sacrificed buttons for the touch bar, while it could have both. And it's a very expensive feature for very little. I wonder if a touch bar with physical buttons would've worked better.

There's also a Windows laptop out there with the equivalent of a touch bar, but much bigger and iirc it tilts up when the laptop is opened up. More usable screen real estate there.

The Touch Bar can be what the Stream Deck is, a small keyboard of live macro keys, if you customize it using Better Touch Tool. I did that and now have useful contextual custom keys and shortcuts.

I know I will miss it a lot when (it seems inevitable now) I have to change for a non-touch bar MacBook Pro . I would not miss the standard Touch Bar

Yes, but no physical feedback on pressing means you can't relax after pressing the key.

The implementation was certainly bad. The tabs in the Touch Bar in Safari are totally broken on both macs I've owned with Touch Bars, across many macOS and Safari versions. If Apple can't make it work at all in Safari then it's pretty hopeless

Reply on news.ycombinator.com