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> It turns out app makers have found some nifty uses for it, like the ability to quickly mute/unmute when in conference calls, quickly changing volume/brightnes
by nkrisc 7y ago
> It turns out app makers have found some nifty uses for it, like the ability to quickly mute/unmute when in conference calls, quickly changing volume/brightness, stepping through code while debugging etc etc.
Maybe I've just had a limited, poor experience with it, but from the apps I've used these functions are only available on the touchbar when the app is focused... which has the controls anyway.
I was using Skype for Business and it had the audio controls in the touch bar, and also on the screen about 1.5" inches above the touchbar. I wanted to mute and unmute when I had the app in the background, but I couldn't. Useless.
- theklr 7y ago...but you cant do that with a regular keyboard, nor phone, nor other OS. How would it know if the app is non focused which app you're commanding without taking more processing power for independent 'quick keys',and from all the new electron apps we already know how efficient they are with memory usage.
- nkrisc 7y agoPrecisely. So what does the touch bar add, if not new capability? So now I have a touchbar that I can't do anything with that I couldn't already do before it.
- sixbrx 7y agoWell having shortcuts to stuff that you don't want to have to trackpad up to and click every time, or remember keyboard chords for. Same purpose as function keys, but without the memorization necessary to use them.
- nkrisc 7y agoSo it's a minor ergonomic improvement, at best. Hardly anything to write home about. When it launched it was marketed as something revolutionary.
- theklr 7y agoTo the context it was used. Apple apps take full advantage of the touchbar. Adobe is finally doing the same. Not all pros are the same and you can turn off its override features in the system preferences. Not all revolutions are immediate.
- kkarakk 7y agoI laughed when they showed the music professional using the touchbar to scrub through audio/video. like any pro is using anything less than a whole another macro keyboard to handle that issue
- breck 7y agoThis is interesting. I don't have a touchbar model (yet) so I'm unfamiliar with the API. But it seems to me like the best way to utilize it would be to allow the user to reserve some fraction of it for global shortcuts/controls/macros, and the rest for the in focus app.
- derefr 7y agoOr how about a modifier key (e.g. Cmd/Super) to make the Touch Bar display global hotkeys rather than local hotkeys? I think it already somewhat does this. But it could also display any applicable Services, which (through making Services in Automator) would cover the macro use-case.
- danaris 7y agoThe right-hand side of the Touch Bar is already the "control strip", which is systemwide, and it has a < at the left of the control strip that expands it to the whole Touch Bar. You can even set that to be the default if you don't like the context-specific softkeys and just want the systemwide ones.
- paulie_a 7y agoYou could actually be fully engaged in the Skype call and not be doing other things
- nkrisc 7y agoBy "other things" do you mean the things I was asked to do by the other people on the call, during the call? Can you please clarify your comment?