4 ms·

Nothing you describe relies on touchbar, only Fn keys

by gowld 7y ago

a_t48 7y ago
The visible status and feedback on what pressing the bar will do isn't replicatable with just Fn keys.
- arcticbull 7y ago
  It feels like neither's a complete solution: on the touch bar you see what touching a button would do, but you have to look, and even then you don't know if you've touched it since there's no feedback. On the keyboard, you don't know what a key would do in a given situation. Sounds like we need a third option.
  - williamdclt 7y ago
    SAY NO MORE you do have feedback with the touchbar! As I recently learned, the trackpad click isn't really a click. It can be triggered by software! And bettertouchtool has a specific action for "touchpad haptic feedback". That means you can trigger a touchpad click when you tap a touchbar button, and it perfectly fine as feedback. Yes you do have to look. I'm not recommending touchbar actions for things that you do so often that it's a problem (though I have a big button to switch between firefox and vscode, big enough that I don't have to look). But it's not like I was using fn keys without looking either
    - arcticbull 7y ago
      That's really cool, I'ma give it a shot!
  - a_t48 7y ago
    There's always https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Optimus_Maximus_keyboard https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Optimus_Maximus_keyboard but it sounds like it was extremely expensive and hard to type on.
  - breuleux 7y ago
    It's not necessarily true you have to look. BTT lets you define actions for sliding 2/3/4 fingers left or right on the entirety of the touchbar. You can set it up to change volume, brightness, ctrl+tab, change the size of a drawing tool, undo/redo, whatever. It works anywhere on the strip, so it's very forgiving. I actually only just now thought of mapping 3-finger swipe to undo/redo. I've only been messing around with it for five minutes but it's kind of nice, honestly! It's better than cmd+z when you need to undo/redo more than once, because it bypasses the key repeat setting.
geoelectric 7y ago
I think the bit where the labels change is a pretty big differentiator, for things that are per-app. Are you old enough to remember when PC applications came with templates that fit over a 101 key keyboard to show you what all the fn keys did? That's why very little outside professional tooling uses them for anything but system-wide shortcuts anymore. They're horrible for discoverability so unless you live in the app enough to thoroughly memorize them they aren't terribly useful. As much as I don't care for the Hot Bar in general, it is far better for per-app shortcuts that are used rarely enough not to require (and thus develop) muscle memory. You'd need one of those OLED keyboards to do much better.

Nothing you describe relies on touchbar, only Fn keys

by gowld 7y ago

Nothing you describe relies on touchbar, only Fn keys

a_t48 7y ago

The visible status and feedback on what pressing the bar will do isn't replicatable with just Fn keys.

arcticbull 7y ago
It feels like neither's a complete solution: on the touch bar you see what touching a button would do, but you have to look, and even then you don't know if you've touched it since there's no feedback. On the keyboard, you don't know what a key would do in a given situation. Sounds like we need a third option.
- williamdclt 7y ago
  SAY NO MORE you do have feedback with the touchbar! As I recently learned, the trackpad click isn't really a click. It can be triggered by software! And bettertouchtool has a specific action for "touchpad haptic feedback". That means you can trigger a touchpad click when you tap a touchbar button, and it perfectly fine as feedback. Yes you do have to look. I'm not recommending touchbar actions for things that you do so often that it's a problem (though I have a big button to switch between firefox and vscode, big enough that I don't have to look). But it's not like I was using fn keys without looking either
  - arcticbull 7y ago
    That's really cool, I'ma give it a shot!
- a_t48 7y ago
  There's always https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Optimus_Maximus_keyboard https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Optimus_Maximus_keyboard but it sounds like it was extremely expensive and hard to type on.
- breuleux 7y ago
  It's not necessarily true you have to look. BTT lets you define actions for sliding 2/3/4 fingers left or right on the entirety of the touchbar. You can set it up to change volume, brightness, ctrl+tab, change the size of a drawing tool, undo/redo, whatever. It works anywhere on the strip, so it's very forgiving. I actually only just now thought of mapping 3-finger swipe to undo/redo. I've only been messing around with it for five minutes but it's kind of nice, honestly! It's better than cmd+z when you need to undo/redo more than once, because it bypasses the key repeat setting.

geoelectric 7y ago

I think the bit where the labels change is a pretty big differentiator, for things that are per-app. Are you old enough to remember when PC applications came with templates that fit over a 101 key keyboard to show you what all the fn keys did? That's why very little outside professional tooling uses them for anything but system-wide shortcuts anymore. They're horrible for discoverability so unless you live in the app enough to thoroughly memorize them they aren't terribly useful. As much as I don't care for the Hot Bar in general, it is far better for per-app shortcuts that are used rarely enough not to require (and thus develop) muscle memory. You'd need one of those OLED keyboards to do much better.