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Trading a touchbar escape key for Windows? As a Mac user that uses Vim, that touchbar escape seems easy to adapt to compared to adapting to an entirely differen

Trading a touchbar escape key for Windows? As a Mac user that uses Vim, that touchbar escape seems easy to adapt to compared to adapting to an entirely different OS (and Windows at that!)

wepple 8y ago
I recall when touchbar first launched, someone on HN pointed out that Esc is a poor way to use Vim anyway and there are far better mappings. I swapped to Ctrl-[ before I even had a new MBP and much prefer it. The “Esc problem” is a drastic reason to throw your whole hardware/OS stack our the window IMO.
- repsilat 8y ago
  Caps-lock could work too. As a weird ctrl+c vimmer I probably wouldn't notice. I think my uses of escape in the past year fall into two categories: - Ctrl-shift-esc (opens the task manager in Windows), and - Trying to close dialogs when I'm not sure which button is "go away".
  - aquamo 8y ago
    As a long time emacs user, I've always had cap-locks mapped as my control key (plus the emacs key-bindings work in html forms and in anything using gnu deadline) which is a bonus. So on my MBP with touch-bar, I have had this mapping so I can have a physical ESC key: CAPSLOCK -> CTRL LEFT CTRL -> ESC It's not great, but it works. The last time I had to deal with a company who put the ESC key in a weird place was back in college where we have several of these HP Apollo/720 keyboards: https://alum.wpi.edu/~tfraser/Machines/hpapollo720.jpg https://alum.wpi.edu/~tfraser/Machines/hpapollo720.jpg :-)
fcbrooklyn 8y ago
Escape key is non negotiable. Sorry, you won't change my mind on that point.
- icedchai 8y ago
  I feel your pain. You can remap caps lock, basically a useless key, to escape, however.
  - fcbrooklyn 8y ago
    Sadly I already remap caps-lock to ctrl. Don't worry though, this SB2 is so nice I'm no longer feeling any pain. Literally my only complaint about it so far is that the headphone jack is in the wrong place (it's on the edge of the screen in the upper right, which is sort of an odd place for a wire to be coming out. It should be on the lower edge either left or right.)
    - sjwright 8y ago
      > Sadly I already remap caps-lock to ctrl. What about your ctrl key? You could remap that to esc.
      - fcbrooklyn 8y ago
        It's a pain to reach. And now that I have an escape key, no need.
    - diffeomorphism 8y ago
      > Sadly I already remap caps-lock to ctrl You can do both. Have it act as ctrl when held (for shortcuts) and as Esc when released on its own: https://github.com/alols/xcape https://github.com/alols/xcape I presume there is similar software for windows.
- jimwalsh 8y ago
  I thought the same thing until I actually used it. Turned out to not be that big of a deal.
- cpuguy83 8y ago
  Yeah, I thought it would be bad, but it is not. The key actually extends to the edge of the touchbar even though the graphic for it does not.

Trading a touchbar escape key for Windows? As a Mac user that uses Vim, that touchbar escape seems easy to adapt to compared to adapting to an entirely different OS (and Windows at that!)

wepple 8y ago

I recall when touchbar first launched, someone on HN pointed out that Esc is a poor way to use Vim anyway and there are far better mappings. I swapped to Ctrl-[ before I even had a new MBP and much prefer it. The “Esc problem” is a drastic reason to throw your whole hardware/OS stack our the window IMO.

repsilat 8y ago
Caps-lock could work too. As a weird ctrl+c vimmer I probably wouldn't notice. I think my uses of escape in the past year fall into two categories: - Ctrl-shift-esc (opens the task manager in Windows), and - Trying to close dialogs when I'm not sure which button is "go away".
- aquamo 8y ago
  As a long time emacs user, I've always had cap-locks mapped as my control key (plus the emacs key-bindings work in html forms and in anything using gnu deadline) which is a bonus. So on my MBP with touch-bar, I have had this mapping so I can have a physical ESC key: CAPSLOCK -> CTRL LEFT CTRL -> ESC It's not great, but it works. The last time I had to deal with a company who put the ESC key in a weird place was back in college where we have several of these HP Apollo/720 keyboards: https://alum.wpi.edu/~tfraser/Machines/hpapollo720.jpg https://alum.wpi.edu/~tfraser/Machines/hpapollo720.jpg :-)

fcbrooklyn 8y ago

Escape key is non negotiable. Sorry, you won't change my mind on that point.

icedchai 8y ago
I feel your pain. You can remap caps lock, basically a useless key, to escape, however.
- fcbrooklyn 8y ago
  Sadly I already remap caps-lock to ctrl. Don't worry though, this SB2 is so nice I'm no longer feeling any pain. Literally my only complaint about it so far is that the headphone jack is in the wrong place (it's on the edge of the screen in the upper right, which is sort of an odd place for a wire to be coming out. It should be on the lower edge either left or right.)
  - sjwright 8y ago
    > Sadly I already remap caps-lock to ctrl. What about your ctrl key? You could remap that to esc.
    - fcbrooklyn 8y ago
      It's a pain to reach. And now that I have an escape key, no need.
  - diffeomorphism 8y ago
    > Sadly I already remap caps-lock to ctrl You can do both. Have it act as ctrl when held (for shortcuts) and as Esc when released on its own: https://github.com/alols/xcape https://github.com/alols/xcape I presume there is similar software for windows.
jimwalsh 8y ago
I thought the same thing until I actually used it. Turned out to not be that big of a deal.
cpuguy83 8y ago
Yeah, I thought it would be bad, but it is not. The key actually extends to the edge of the touchbar even though the graphic for it does not.