10 ms·

I'm really surprised by the negative reactions to the context bar. Does everyone really have memorized what all 12 function keys do in every app they use? I thi

I'm really surprised by the negative reactions to the context bar. Does everyone really have memorized what all 12 function keys do in every app they use? I think this could tremendously help usability for pretty much every application other than my IDE, since I do have those memorized. Being able to hit a function key without looking? I may be able to to touch type. But I've never trusted myself to hit a function key blindly. I will say. Stepping through code could be difficult. Where I repeatedly am stepping over lines while looking at the screen. I imagine my finger could drift. Couldn't say without using it, but I imagine I would keep one finger on a number to ground my hand while tapping step over or step in.

dikaiosune 10y ago
Do you never use the Esc key without looking?
- kauegimenes 10y ago
  What about ctrl + c?
  - dikaiosune 10y ago
    If I understand your suggestion, ctrl+c doesn't work in all the contexts where I use escape (modal dialogs, editor autocomplete popups, etc).
- hn_user2 10y ago
  Honestly. Can't really think of when I use escape to give a real answer. I think I could hit it without looking, but I don't think I hit escape that often. Or maybe I use it all the time and won't notice until it's gone. But yeah. If ^[ or caps lock mapping is not an option, and your workflow requires a lot of escape presses, it could be annoying to have to look down to hit it.
  - vmasto 10y ago
    Get out of a dialog quicky. Get out of the OS popup (e.g. File save). Get out of the current context in your editor/IDE (e.g. Search etc) Cancel something. Cmd+esc takes you to the previous up from cmd+tab (instead of cmd+shift+tab). Ever wanted to cancel drag and drop?! Honestly the Esc key is indispensible.
    - eric_h 10y ago
      > Cmd+esc takes you to the previous up from cmd+tab I've always used cmd+~ for that
  - x0x0 10y ago
    exactly -- vim users who haven't transitioned to ^[ hit it all the time Also, this looks to me like yet another not-particularly-useful tentpole 'feature' when I really wish they would spend some quality time fixing abundant os and finder bugs.
    - yoz-y 10y ago
      Why transition to a double key combo rather than use CapsLock as Esc? The other quite useful "universal" key is the § key on a European mac keyboard (which is for some insane reason just under Esc where ` normally would be)
      - x0x0 10y ago
        Because your fingers stay in the normal location. To hit escape, I have to either lift my left hand or rotate sharply at the wrist.
        yoz-y 10y ago
        Yes, but you capslock is more accessible than the ctrl key in my opinion. I quite like the option to remap capslock to both ctrl (when used with another key) and to esc when pressed alone, that was suggested in other comments.
- inopinatus 10y ago
  I hit Esc without looking all the time. It's how I dismiss modals. I foresee a good deal of ` in my future. I have also learned to find the keyboard backlight brightness keys in pitch darkness.
- Ar-Curunir 10y ago
  Why would anyone use Esc over CapsLock?
  - ghshephard 10y ago
    Because they've mapped CapsLock to CTRL?
    - jooize 10y ago
      They should map both Control and Escape to Caps Lock. Control when combined with other key or held for longer than 250 ms, and Escape when pressed and released within 250 ms.
      - ghshephard 10y ago
        That's awesome, I had no idea you could do that. MacOS Sierra? Doesn't appear to be present in El Capitan Modifier keys - or is it a third party utility?
        adamwathan 10y ago
        Can do it using Karabiner (https://pqrs.org/osx/karabiner/ https://pqrs.org/osx/karabiner/). Sadly doesn't support Sierra properly yet.
        jtokoph 10y ago
        Check out ControllerMate. It lets you remap anything with complex logic.
        floatboth 10y ago
        The original blog post that introduced me to this setup describes macOS setup: http://stevelosh.com/blog/2012/10/a-modern-space-cadet/#control-escape http://stevelosh.com/blog/2012/10/a-modern-space-cadet/#cont... On X11, https://github.com/alols/xcape https://github.com/alols/xcape just run `xcape -t 350 -e 'Control_L=Escape'` On Windows, AutoHotkey: https://github.com/myfreeweb/dotfiles/blob/32c9cfd8d5e0a3a2c42c929f10cee9edea0e42fb/windows/keyboardstuff.ahk https://github.com/myfreeweb/dotfiles/blob/32c9cfd8d5e0a3a2c...
- jperras 10y ago
  I hit Esc without looking about 500 times a day. As does nearly every Vim user in existence, I imagine.
  - ikawe 10y ago
    s/day/hour
    - eric_h 10y ago
      Haha, yeah - 500/day definitely seemed low to me
    - jperras 10y ago
      To be honest, my ratio is probably more like 750/hour, considering that I do 100% of my work in terminal windows, use nvim as my main code editor, use a tiling window manager (whose keybindings include escape for some sequences), use mutt for email, newsbeuter for rss feeds, weechat for irc… I just didn't want to seem overly hyperbolic in my original post :)
  - eric_h 10y ago
    Not a vim user (but I know how to use it-ish). The escape key as the key in vim always struck me as an odd choice, ergonomically. Of course, I've mapped ctrl to the caps lock key, so...
    - vacri 10y ago
      The original vi was created on a keyboard that had Esc in the place where CapsLock now lives (on a standard US or UK English 104-key keyboard)
    - phaemon 10y ago
      The original `vi` was written on an ADM-3A terminal. If you have a look at the keyboard layout https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ADM-3A#/media/File:KB_Terminal_ADM3A.svg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ADM-3A#/media/File:KB_Terminal... You can not only see why Esc was easy to hit, but also the arrow keys (and, in common with other terminals of the time, why "home" is "~")
- santaclaus 10y ago
  I'm thinking it'll be rad to map the entire bar to escape for vim use.
secfirstmd 10y ago
I was kind of hoping for a touch screen Mac. Is that ever gonna happen?
- akent 10y ago
  I never want this. Why would I mess up my beautiful high resolution screen with fingerprints?
  - SiVal 10y ago
    I rarely notice any fingerprints on my beautiful, high-resolution iPhone screen. And I much prefer using a REAL computer with a REAL file system and REAL USB connectors for loading arbitrary data and organizing it into an arbitrary directory hierarchy and begin able to work on those files with any arbitrary combination of a REAL command line for extra powerful, customizable tools and REAL power GUI apps. The multiple-degree-of-freedom stylus like the iPencil could give even more power to a real computer. Unfortunately, the thinking at Apple seems to be that if you want the power of a great stylus, you'll have to give up the real computer and use it on the toy OS that Apple seems to want us all to move to eventually.
    - dijit 10y ago
      Counterpoint: I notice fingerprints on my iPhone screen. I'm constantly wiping it on my jeans to get rid of bits of dirt, finger grease and other stuff.
  - grzm 10y ago
    I'm ambivalent about a touch screen Mac. I do know I've got plenty of fingerprints on my screen even without one :)
- elsonrodriguez 10y ago
  I was hoping for that too, but after some interactions with touch screens on Windows laptops, I realized there's very little I actually want to touch on a Desktop UI.
JoshTriplett 10y ago
Yes, I touch-type function keys. And having used the X1 Carbon 2nd generation, I hated the "touch-strip" function keys, both because they have no boundaries between keys and because they have no tactile feedback when pressing. The "context bar" seems like a huge win for people who look at the keyboard (who do comprise a huge fraction of the market), and a huge loss for touch-typists. That said, I also don't use that many function keys, and I've slowly started remapping the keys I care about to other key combinations. In practice, I care about a few sets of function keys, most notably F11/F12 (commonly used for fullscreen, which I've now remapped to Super-F), and F4 (Alt-F4 to close applications, for which I've now trained my fingers to use Ctrl-W or Ctrl-Q and report bugs on the occasional application that doesn't accept those).
- st3v3r 10y ago
  "I hated the "touch-strip" function keys, both because they have no boundaries between keys and because they have no tactile feedback when pressing." I don't know about the boundary between keys thing, but for tactile feedback: Force Touch? "The "context bar" seems like a huge win for people who look at the keyboard (who do comprise a huge fraction of the market), and a huge loss for touch-typists." I don't think so. I touch-type, but I hardly ever touch-type the function bar. Doubly so on a Mac, because the function bar is, by default, used for brightness and media controls.
  - JoshTriplett 10y ago
    > I don't know about the boundary between keys thing, but for tactile feedback: Force Touch? I've (briefly) used a device with Force Touch. It doesn't come anywhere close to replacing the depress-and-release of a physical key. It's better than nothing, barely. But I don't want to use a tablet with an on-screen keyboard as my primary productivity device; I want to use a laptop with a physical keyboard. > I don't think so. I touch-type, but I hardly ever touch-type the function bar. Doubly so on a Mac, because the function bar is, by default, used for brightness and media controls. That seems like a self-fulfilling prophecy. I also know many Mac users who don't know why anyone would need a right mouse button, let alone a middle mouse button. If you design your interface to not need it, and you know people will never run third-party applications that do, then sure.
losvedir 10y ago
You haven't lived until you've used Apptivate[0] to map the function keys to your most commonly used apps (I think with them "inverted" so you don't need to hold "fn"). I have F1 -> Finder, F2 -> Postico, F3 -> Chrome, F4 -> Sublime, F5 -> iTerm2, and can touch type each of them. It feels great to easily flip between those apps as necessary. It's like Cmd+Tab but goes to exactly the correct application each time. I'll still probably get one of these MacBook Pros eventually, but the lack of F1 buttons is a loss. [0] http://www.apptivateapp.com/ http://www.apptivateapp.com/
- hn_user2 10y ago
  Was going to check it out, then realized it's too late. Maybe better off not knowing at this point.
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
- grincho 10y ago
  I've been doing this (with a different util) as my primary way of navigating for 20 years. It makes screen clutter irrelevant. Without physical function keys, I can't think of a way to maintain this with the same convenience, being able to do it one-handed with either hand, avoid conflicting with stock shortcuts, and not sprain my hand. Fortunately, I use an external keyboard much of the time, which I selected almost wholly for its proper 4-groupings of function keys, letting me touch-type them.
- brandall10 10y ago
  All my most used apps are just three keypresses away -- I chord my caps-lock (remapped to ctrl) and ';' keys to bring up spotlight, type 'c' for instance for chrome, then enter. Super quick and don't have to leave the home row.
- Too 10y ago
  Windows has this feature built in. Win+1, 2, 3 etc maps to the location on the task bar. It's one of the best features most people didn't know existed. Swapping between applications becomes very fast and precise.
duaneb 10y ago
I can safely say I never look at my keyboard.
ryanbertrand 10y ago
It would be nice if they added the Taptic feedback on the touch bar as well.
extra88 10y ago
Speaking of hitting a function key blindly, Command-F5 is how you turn on VoiceOver. How will that work if F5 is just an image on a smooth surface?
- throwanem 10y ago
  "Hey Siri, turn on VoiceOver."
  - extra88 10y ago
    But Sierra doesn't have "Hey Siri" enabled out of the box, right? But a solution that works may be not too far off. In earlier versions, pressing the 'fn' key twice enables voice dictation out of the box, if that's the keyboard default for Siri in Sierra, that could do the trick.
dragonshed 10y ago
I'm sure there are a lot of folks on both sides, though, so I'll reserve judgement on whether removing F keys in favor of context-aware touch keys is a good idea or not. However, I do use them frequently every day, so I'm skeptical. A pricy laptop without F keys doesn't appear to be a 'Pro' offering to me.
CountSessine 10y ago
F9 is toggle breakpoint. F10 is step over. F11 is step into. F12 is step out-of. That's all that's important and Apple can blow me if they think I'm going to map those to something else.
- hn_user2 10y ago
  I guess my assumption is that those are what would be on the context bar when the ide is running. Whatever used to be function keys are there, but now with labels.
- jfoster 10y ago
  Why wouldn't the equivalent touchstrip keys be mapped to those whenever you're in your IDE?
  - CountSessine 10y ago
    I like the tactile feedback. I don't want to be taking my eyes off the disassembly and register display.
    - hn_user2 10y ago
      Yeah I think this is a valid point. I guess we won't know until we try it. But my guess is we will learn where they are in relation to number keys. So index on 5 key to ground your location and then ring finger to tap step over repeatedly. Just guessing. Maybe I'll hate it.
    - Corrado 10y ago
      Then again, each of those "buttons" could be 3" wide, making it very easy to hit without looking. Much more so than trying to hit the correct button today.
pjwal 10y ago
I don't really understand the brouhaha either, unless my assumption is wrong that an opt-out option will be given for context based remapping on an app-by-app basis if not system wide? Surely, there will be "hacks" to allow things like REALLY BIG F KEYS ALWAYS ON skin, etc.
partiallypro 10y ago
The bar makes sense for people who look at the keyboard to type, otherwise it makes no sense. Where it might make sense is if it were still physical keys but you could customize the letters etc on them and generally just change how they function. Which is a concept that has been around since 2004ish. To me this is a cheap way for Apple to have a touchscreen without having a touchscreen as the actual screen. Unless they show some crazy functionality, the I don't get it. Even the "touch ID" thing is sort of a "why?" for me when you have Windows Hello using your face as the password.
deepGem 10y ago
"other than my IDE, since I do have those memorized". How do you do this ? I use Xcode and Intellij and it's a PITA to remember the function key mappings while switching between the two. That said I'm not sure how this context bar will solve that though.
- matt4077 10y ago
  Ideally, you would standardize keycaps across all editors. I've been meaning to but haven't come around. It'd also be great if there'd be some standardization – not necessarily on the shortcuts themselves, but around a format to specify them. .editorconf, or the vscode language servers are great examples of this sort of anarchic cooperation, but shortcuts don't seem to be in scope for them.
vbezhenar 10y ago
> Does everyone really have memorized what all 12 function keys do in every app they use? I use IntelliJ Idea, Google Chrome Developer Console, World of Warcraft and those applications make heavy use of F-buttons. At work I usually use large monitor and external keyboard, so I probably could use this notebook anyway, but F-buttons for me are extremely important and using notebook without external keyboard would be a huge headache.
- hn_user2 10y ago
  Yeah. I guess my point is they would still be there. Except instead of labeled F8 it's labeled "Step Into" and instead of F2 it's labeled "Target Mob" or whatever wow f keys do. Way better ux for the average user since I would hazard a large number of people don't actually know what those f keys do.
  - vbezhenar 10y ago
    Honestly I don't see that cross-platform applications will implement it. At least in near future. So probably it'll be those F-keys, but without physical sense. Overall I agree, that icons instead of buttons would be better (I'm always confusing "step over" and "step into" hotkeys). Anyway it's better to try it before judge. May be those keys are fine or may be I can live with different hotkeys.
weavie 10y ago
When using XCode I would have a piece of duck tape stuck over the F6 key so I could instantly locate Step Over and Step into.
- yoz-y 10y ago
  I wonder why the debugging shortcuts never got at least somewhat standardized. I switch semi-regularly between xcode, qtcreator and visual studio and it is driving me nuts. (also I am too lazy to remap them and then hunt all of the conflicts that ensue)
lmm 10y ago
> Being able to hit a function key without looking? I may be able to to touch type. But I've never trusted myself to hit a function key blindly. Try it. Just in your IDE, since that's the only place you use them anyway. It's easy enough once you get used to it, just like touch typing in general.
Corrado 10y ago
Actually, doing things like stepping through code might be made easier. Since the key positions can be remapped, you could split the bar into 3 big "keys" - back / step / forward. Or maybe even do something like pressing harder to step continuously through code. I think, with a little imagination, this could be a really good thing. I'm a touch typist but generally I have to look at the function keys when I need them. If they could be remapped on the fly for different programs, WiFi networks, etc. then it would make things much easier. How about a "boss" button when playing a game? Or a button to kill all sound output when your in Chrome?

dikaiosune 10y ago

Do you never use the Esc key without looking?

kauegimenes 10y ago
What about ctrl + c?
- dikaiosune 10y ago
  If I understand your suggestion, ctrl+c doesn't work in all the contexts where I use escape (modal dialogs, editor autocomplete popups, etc).
hn_user2 10y ago
Honestly. Can't really think of when I use escape to give a real answer. I think I could hit it without looking, but I don't think I hit escape that often. Or maybe I use it all the time and won't notice until it's gone. But yeah. If ^[ or caps lock mapping is not an option, and your workflow requires a lot of escape presses, it could be annoying to have to look down to hit it.
- vmasto 10y ago
  Get out of a dialog quicky. Get out of the OS popup (e.g. File save). Get out of the current context in your editor/IDE (e.g. Search etc) Cancel something. Cmd+esc takes you to the previous up from cmd+tab (instead of cmd+shift+tab). Ever wanted to cancel drag and drop?! Honestly the Esc key is indispensible.
  - eric_h 10y ago
    > Cmd+esc takes you to the previous up from cmd+tab I've always used cmd+~ for that
- x0x0 10y ago
  exactly -- vim users who haven't transitioned to ^[ hit it all the time Also, this looks to me like yet another not-particularly-useful tentpole 'feature' when I really wish they would spend some quality time fixing abundant os and finder bugs.
  - yoz-y 10y ago
    Why transition to a double key combo rather than use CapsLock as Esc? The other quite useful "universal" key is the § key on a European mac keyboard (which is for some insane reason just under Esc where ` normally would be)
    - x0x0 10y ago
      Because your fingers stay in the normal location. To hit escape, I have to either lift my left hand or rotate sharply at the wrist.
      - yoz-y 10y ago
        Yes, but you capslock is more accessible than the ctrl key in my opinion. I quite like the option to remap capslock to both ctrl (when used with another key) and to esc when pressed alone, that was suggested in other comments.
inopinatus 10y ago
I hit Esc without looking all the time. It's how I dismiss modals. I foresee a good deal of ` in my future. I have also learned to find the keyboard backlight brightness keys in pitch darkness.
Ar-Curunir 10y ago
Why would anyone use Esc over CapsLock?
- ghshephard 10y ago
  Because they've mapped CapsLock to CTRL?
  - jooize 10y ago
    They should map both Control and Escape to Caps Lock. Control when combined with other key or held for longer than 250 ms, and Escape when pressed and released within 250 ms.
    - ghshephard 10y ago
      That's awesome, I had no idea you could do that. MacOS Sierra? Doesn't appear to be present in El Capitan Modifier keys - or is it a third party utility?
      - adamwathan 10y ago
        Can do it using Karabiner (https://pqrs.org/osx/karabiner/ https://pqrs.org/osx/karabiner/). Sadly doesn't support Sierra properly yet.
      - jtokoph 10y ago
        Check out ControllerMate. It lets you remap anything with complex logic.
      - floatboth 10y ago
        The original blog post that introduced me to this setup describes macOS setup: http://stevelosh.com/blog/2012/10/a-modern-space-cadet/#control-escape http://stevelosh.com/blog/2012/10/a-modern-space-cadet/#cont... On X11, https://github.com/alols/xcape https://github.com/alols/xcape just run `xcape -t 350 -e 'Control_L=Escape'` On Windows, AutoHotkey: https://github.com/myfreeweb/dotfiles/blob/32c9cfd8d5e0a3a2c42c929f10cee9edea0e42fb/windows/keyboardstuff.ahk https://github.com/myfreeweb/dotfiles/blob/32c9cfd8d5e0a3a2c...
jperras 10y ago
I hit Esc without looking about 500 times a day. As does nearly every Vim user in existence, I imagine.
- ikawe 10y ago
  s/day/hour
  - eric_h 10y ago
    Haha, yeah - 500/day definitely seemed low to me
  - jperras 10y ago
    To be honest, my ratio is probably more like 750/hour, considering that I do 100% of my work in terminal windows, use nvim as my main code editor, use a tiling window manager (whose keybindings include escape for some sequences), use mutt for email, newsbeuter for rss feeds, weechat for irc… I just didn't want to seem overly hyperbolic in my original post :)
- eric_h 10y ago
  Not a vim user (but I know how to use it-ish). The escape key as the key in vim always struck me as an odd choice, ergonomically. Of course, I've mapped ctrl to the caps lock key, so...
  - vacri 10y ago
    The original vi was created on a keyboard that had Esc in the place where CapsLock now lives (on a standard US or UK English 104-key keyboard)
  - phaemon 10y ago
    The original `vi` was written on an ADM-3A terminal. If you have a look at the keyboard layout https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ADM-3A#/media/File:KB_Terminal_ADM3A.svg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ADM-3A#/media/File:KB_Terminal... You can not only see why Esc was easy to hit, but also the arrow keys (and, in common with other terminals of the time, why "home" is "~")
santaclaus 10y ago
I'm thinking it'll be rad to map the entire bar to escape for vim use.

secfirstmd 10y ago

I was kind of hoping for a touch screen Mac. Is that ever gonna happen?

akent 10y ago
I never want this. Why would I mess up my beautiful high resolution screen with fingerprints?
- SiVal 10y ago
  I rarely notice any fingerprints on my beautiful, high-resolution iPhone screen. And I much prefer using a REAL computer with a REAL file system and REAL USB connectors for loading arbitrary data and organizing it into an arbitrary directory hierarchy and begin able to work on those files with any arbitrary combination of a REAL command line for extra powerful, customizable tools and REAL power GUI apps. The multiple-degree-of-freedom stylus like the iPencil could give even more power to a real computer. Unfortunately, the thinking at Apple seems to be that if you want the power of a great stylus, you'll have to give up the real computer and use it on the toy OS that Apple seems to want us all to move to eventually.
  - dijit 10y ago
    Counterpoint: I notice fingerprints on my iPhone screen. I'm constantly wiping it on my jeans to get rid of bits of dirt, finger grease and other stuff.
- grzm 10y ago
  I'm ambivalent about a touch screen Mac. I do know I've got plenty of fingerprints on my screen even without one :)
elsonrodriguez 10y ago
I was hoping for that too, but after some interactions with touch screens on Windows laptops, I realized there's very little I actually want to touch on a Desktop UI.

JoshTriplett 10y ago

Yes, I touch-type function keys. And having used the X1 Carbon 2nd generation, I hated the "touch-strip" function keys, both because they have no boundaries between keys and because they have no tactile feedback when pressing. The "context bar" seems like a huge win for people who look at the keyboard (who do comprise a huge fraction of the market), and a huge loss for touch-typists. That said, I also don't use that many function keys, and I've slowly started remapping the keys I care about to other key combinations. In practice, I care about a few sets of function keys, most notably F11/F12 (commonly used for fullscreen, which I've now remapped to Super-F), and F4 (Alt-F4 to close applications, for which I've now trained my fingers to use Ctrl-W or Ctrl-Q and report bugs on the occasional application that doesn't accept those).

st3v3r 10y ago
"I hated the "touch-strip" function keys, both because they have no boundaries between keys and because they have no tactile feedback when pressing." I don't know about the boundary between keys thing, but for tactile feedback: Force Touch? "The "context bar" seems like a huge win for people who look at the keyboard (who do comprise a huge fraction of the market), and a huge loss for touch-typists." I don't think so. I touch-type, but I hardly ever touch-type the function bar. Doubly so on a Mac, because the function bar is, by default, used for brightness and media controls.
- JoshTriplett 10y ago
  > I don't know about the boundary between keys thing, but for tactile feedback: Force Touch? I've (briefly) used a device with Force Touch. It doesn't come anywhere close to replacing the depress-and-release of a physical key. It's better than nothing, barely. But I don't want to use a tablet with an on-screen keyboard as my primary productivity device; I want to use a laptop with a physical keyboard. > I don't think so. I touch-type, but I hardly ever touch-type the function bar. Doubly so on a Mac, because the function bar is, by default, used for brightness and media controls. That seems like a self-fulfilling prophecy. I also know many Mac users who don't know why anyone would need a right mouse button, let alone a middle mouse button. If you design your interface to not need it, and you know people will never run third-party applications that do, then sure.

losvedir 10y ago

You haven't lived until you've used Apptivate[0] to map the function keys to your most commonly used apps (I think with them "inverted" so you don't need to hold "fn"). I have F1 -> Finder, F2 -> Postico, F3 -> Chrome, F4 -> Sublime, F5 -> iTerm2, and can touch type each of them. It feels great to easily flip between those apps as necessary. It's like Cmd+Tab but goes to exactly the correct application each time. I'll still probably get one of these MacBook Pros eventually, but the lack of F1 buttons is a loss. [0] http://www.apptivateapp.com/ http://www.apptivateapp.com/

hn_user2 10y ago
Was going to check it out, then realized it's too late. Maybe better off not knowing at this point.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
grincho 10y ago
I've been doing this (with a different util) as my primary way of navigating for 20 years. It makes screen clutter irrelevant. Without physical function keys, I can't think of a way to maintain this with the same convenience, being able to do it one-handed with either hand, avoid conflicting with stock shortcuts, and not sprain my hand. Fortunately, I use an external keyboard much of the time, which I selected almost wholly for its proper 4-groupings of function keys, letting me touch-type them.
brandall10 10y ago
All my most used apps are just three keypresses away -- I chord my caps-lock (remapped to ctrl) and ';' keys to bring up spotlight, type 'c' for instance for chrome, then enter. Super quick and don't have to leave the home row.
Too 10y ago
Windows has this feature built in. Win+1, 2, 3 etc maps to the location on the task bar. It's one of the best features most people didn't know existed. Swapping between applications becomes very fast and precise.

duaneb 10y ago

I can safely say I never look at my keyboard.

ryanbertrand 10y ago

It would be nice if they added the Taptic feedback on the touch bar as well.

extra88 10y ago

Speaking of hitting a function key blindly, Command-F5 is how you turn on VoiceOver. How will that work if F5 is just an image on a smooth surface?

throwanem 10y ago
"Hey Siri, turn on VoiceOver."
- extra88 10y ago
  But Sierra doesn't have "Hey Siri" enabled out of the box, right? But a solution that works may be not too far off. In earlier versions, pressing the 'fn' key twice enables voice dictation out of the box, if that's the keyboard default for Siri in Sierra, that could do the trick.

dragonshed 10y ago

I'm sure there are a lot of folks on both sides, though, so I'll reserve judgement on whether removing F keys in favor of context-aware touch keys is a good idea or not. However, I do use them frequently every day, so I'm skeptical. A pricy laptop without F keys doesn't appear to be a 'Pro' offering to me.

CountSessine 10y ago

F9 is toggle breakpoint. F10 is step over. F11 is step into. F12 is step out-of. That's all that's important and Apple can blow me if they think I'm going to map those to something else.

hn_user2 10y ago
I guess my assumption is that those are what would be on the context bar when the ide is running. Whatever used to be function keys are there, but now with labels.
jfoster 10y ago
Why wouldn't the equivalent touchstrip keys be mapped to those whenever you're in your IDE?
- CountSessine 10y ago
  I like the tactile feedback. I don't want to be taking my eyes off the disassembly and register display.
  - hn_user2 10y ago
    Yeah I think this is a valid point. I guess we won't know until we try it. But my guess is we will learn where they are in relation to number keys. So index on 5 key to ground your location and then ring finger to tap step over repeatedly. Just guessing. Maybe I'll hate it.
  - Corrado 10y ago
    Then again, each of those "buttons" could be 3" wide, making it very easy to hit without looking. Much more so than trying to hit the correct button today.

pjwal 10y ago

I don't really understand the brouhaha either, unless my assumption is wrong that an opt-out option will be given for context based remapping on an app-by-app basis if not system wide? Surely, there will be "hacks" to allow things like REALLY BIG F KEYS ALWAYS ON skin, etc.

partiallypro 10y ago

The bar makes sense for people who look at the keyboard to type, otherwise it makes no sense. Where it might make sense is if it were still physical keys but you could customize the letters etc on them and generally just change how they function. Which is a concept that has been around since 2004ish. To me this is a cheap way for Apple to have a touchscreen without having a touchscreen as the actual screen. Unless they show some crazy functionality, the I don't get it. Even the "touch ID" thing is sort of a "why?" for me when you have Windows Hello using your face as the password.

deepGem 10y ago

"other than my IDE, since I do have those memorized". How do you do this ? I use Xcode and Intellij and it's a PITA to remember the function key mappings while switching between the two. That said I'm not sure how this context bar will solve that though.

matt4077 10y ago
Ideally, you would standardize keycaps across all editors. I've been meaning to but haven't come around. It'd also be great if there'd be some standardization – not necessarily on the shortcuts themselves, but around a format to specify them. .editorconf, or the vscode language servers are great examples of this sort of anarchic cooperation, but shortcuts don't seem to be in scope for them.

vbezhenar 10y ago

> Does everyone really have memorized what all 12 function keys do in every app they use? I use IntelliJ Idea, Google Chrome Developer Console, World of Warcraft and those applications make heavy use of F-buttons. At work I usually use large monitor and external keyboard, so I probably could use this notebook anyway, but F-buttons for me are extremely important and using notebook without external keyboard would be a huge headache.

hn_user2 10y ago
Yeah. I guess my point is they would still be there. Except instead of labeled F8 it's labeled "Step Into" and instead of F2 it's labeled "Target Mob" or whatever wow f keys do. Way better ux for the average user since I would hazard a large number of people don't actually know what those f keys do.
- vbezhenar 10y ago
  Honestly I don't see that cross-platform applications will implement it. At least in near future. So probably it'll be those F-keys, but without physical sense. Overall I agree, that icons instead of buttons would be better (I'm always confusing "step over" and "step into" hotkeys). Anyway it's better to try it before judge. May be those keys are fine or may be I can live with different hotkeys.

weavie 10y ago

When using XCode I would have a piece of duck tape stuck over the F6 key so I could instantly locate Step Over and Step into.

yoz-y 10y ago
I wonder why the debugging shortcuts never got at least somewhat standardized. I switch semi-regularly between xcode, qtcreator and visual studio and it is driving me nuts. (also I am too lazy to remap them and then hunt all of the conflicts that ensue)

lmm 10y ago

> Being able to hit a function key without looking? I may be able to to touch type. But I've never trusted myself to hit a function key blindly. Try it. Just in your IDE, since that's the only place you use them anyway. It's easy enough once you get used to it, just like touch typing in general.

Corrado 10y ago

Actually, doing things like stepping through code might be made easier. Since the key positions can be remapped, you could split the bar into 3 big "keys" - back / step / forward. Or maybe even do something like pressing harder to step continuously through code. I think, with a little imagination, this could be a really good thing. I'm a touch typist but generally I have to look at the function keys when I need them. If they could be remapped on the fly for different programs, WiFi networks, etc. then it would make things much easier. How about a "boss" button when playing a game? Or a button to kill all sound output when your in Chrome?