5 ms·

> A significant source of consternation, amongst software engineers at least was the confiscation of the function and escape keys. Well I didn’t much miss them.

> A significant source of consternation, amongst software engineers at least was the confiscation of the function and escape keys. Well I didn’t much miss them. Every time I went for the escape key, it’s graphical facsimile was there and did the job. My feelings as well, after playing with a store demo machine for ~30 minutes, mostly in Terminal.app/vim. There were/are so many people complaining about the lack of an escape key, making silly memes to that effect, etc. Yet, in practice, it works just fine. Terminal.app has been updated to take advantage of the touch bar too, both allowing you to quickly assign a new background color to the window, and to take the currently-typed command and open up a man page for it in a new window. Not essential functionality by any means, but little things which you might actually integrate into your workflow.

izacus 10y ago
I dunno, trying to press Esc and getting that glossy no-response touch feedback is still bothering me after two weeks of using it. It might be "acceptable" and something you get use to... but it's worse. Just like I keep being reminded how much better old keyboard is when I do anything on my 2014 MBP. Touchbar sits empty 90% of the time, and when it's not, it just duplicates functions that are easier to do with actual key combos. I really don't get why it doesn't have haptic feedback like the touchpad to mitigate at least some of the bad glossy touch feeling :/ ... or how I get reminded I didn't have to look for damn dongles every damn time I want to plug in a HDMI projector for a talk, a USB stick or a phone. It's something you get used to. We, after all, got used to Win dows Vista, HP printers and other terrible products. It's still an annoying step back and it's actually bothering me more than I though it would.
- herge 10y ago
  You can switch the capslock key for escape if you really miss it. It's under System Preferences > Keyboard > Modifier Keys.
  - tedajax 10y ago
    Right but then I'm changing standard keyboard layout so as soon as I go to another computer muscle memory is screwed. Honestly would it really kill them to have a top spec MBP without the touchbar? I mean would it really kill them to just not have the touchbar at all since it doesn't actually solve anything or do anything better? Just a terrible gimmick honestly.
    - mhw 10y ago
      > Just a terrible gimmick honestly in your opinion
      - Maert 10y ago
        In most people's opinion.
        hnaway1 10y ago
        Any evidence of that?
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
zbjornson 10y ago
What about when you want to hover over a key to tap it repeatedly, like F8 and F9 for stepping through debugging? Similar to hovering over the tuner seek buttons on a touch screen car radio, I don't know how people do that without looking and without a physical button to rest on.
- Roboprog 10y ago
  Likewise - there are at least 4 F-keys I regularly use: rename, find-usages, step-over, step-into. Much of what my IDE does is accessible via vi/vim key bindings (e.g. - ctags like "go to definition" key combo), but I still use the F-keys. The touch bar is a horrible gimmick, and forces you to use an external keyboard for Real Work (TM). That, and mag-safe was one of the best ideas, ever.
karlding 10y ago
Technically, you could map jk or something in your ~/.vimrc in order to exit insertion mode, which would avoid the whole issue. :imap jk <Esc> (I don't personally use this, but one of my friends swears by it)

izacus 10y ago

I dunno, trying to press Esc and getting that glossy no-response touch feedback is still bothering me after two weeks of using it. It might be "acceptable" and something you get use to... but it's worse. Just like I keep being reminded how much better old keyboard is when I do anything on my 2014 MBP. Touchbar sits empty 90% of the time, and when it's not, it just duplicates functions that are easier to do with actual key combos. I really don't get why it doesn't have haptic feedback like the touchpad to mitigate at least some of the bad glossy touch feeling :/ ... or how I get reminded I didn't have to look for damn dongles every damn time I want to plug in a HDMI projector for a talk, a USB stick or a phone. It's something you get used to. We, after all, got used to Win dows Vista, HP printers and other terrible products. It's still an annoying step back and it's actually bothering me more than I though it would.

herge 10y ago
You can switch the capslock key for escape if you really miss it. It's under System Preferences > Keyboard > Modifier Keys.
- tedajax 10y ago
  Right but then I'm changing standard keyboard layout so as soon as I go to another computer muscle memory is screwed. Honestly would it really kill them to have a top spec MBP without the touchbar? I mean would it really kill them to just not have the touchbar at all since it doesn't actually solve anything or do anything better? Just a terrible gimmick honestly.
  - mhw 10y ago
    > Just a terrible gimmick honestly in your opinion
    - Maert 10y ago
      In most people's opinion.
      - hnaway1 10y ago
        Any evidence of that?
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]

zbjornson 10y ago

What about when you want to hover over a key to tap it repeatedly, like F8 and F9 for stepping through debugging? Similar to hovering over the tuner seek buttons on a touch screen car radio, I don't know how people do that without looking and without a physical button to rest on.

Roboprog 10y ago
Likewise - there are at least 4 F-keys I regularly use: rename, find-usages, step-over, step-into. Much of what my IDE does is accessible via vi/vim key bindings (e.g. - ctags like "go to definition" key combo), but I still use the F-keys. The touch bar is a horrible gimmick, and forces you to use an external keyboard for Real Work (TM). That, and mag-safe was one of the best ideas, ever.

karlding 10y ago

Technically, you could map jk or something in your ~/.vimrc in order to exit insertion mode, which would avoid the whole issue. :imap jk <Esc> (I don't personally use this, but one of my friends swears by it)