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> You can program your touchbar with something like BetterTouchTool. I just have no use for a touchbar. After all, I have a screen! I never look at my keyboard

> You can program your touchbar with something like BetterTouchTool. I just have no use for a touchbar. After all, I have a screen! I never look at my keyboard.... it’s all about tactile feedback, which the touchbar notoriously lacks.

williamdclt 6y ago
> I just have no use for a touchbar I find this very narrow-minded. You can't imagine a single thing that a programmable tactile interface would bring over keys (that you probably can't reliably touch-type either, fn keys are far)? I never looked at my keyboard either. I still don't, I look at my touchbar from time to time to do things that would take me longer to do if I had to move a cursor (checking the time, my next calendar event, controlling music amongst a dozen things)
- melq 6y ago
  I agree that there are probably some cool uses for the touch bar if you put some thought in to tailoring it to your work flow, but it is not a tactile interface. Keys are a tactile interface. You can't discern anything from the touchbar by touch, its a flat piece of glass. Personally, I've never spent any time trying to customize the touch bar because I am never using my laptop without an external keyboard, because of how fuckin' terrible the built in one is. So happy they added some travel back to the keys. I have put off buying a new laptop for years because of how much I hate that stupid keyboard.
- monadic2 6y ago
  > I still don't, I look at my touchbar from time to time to do things that would take me longer to do if I had to move a cursor (checking the time, my next calendar event, controlling music amongst a dozen things) Moving the mouse doesn't really bother me, and there are a million ways to wire functionality to keyboard expressions or in-UI functionality. I do miss my hardware volume, prev track, next track, play/pause functionality exactly because I could use them easily without shifting focus at all, even to my keyboard. OTOH I'm not holding my breath for Apple to meet my needs, they aren't that kind of company.
breuleux 6y ago
I mean, you can always use more screen. On my touchbar I display the time, battery, weather. I also have a script to start a timer and display the time remaining on it (or the output of any script, really). It saves some screen estate. It's nice! Also there are actions you can program on the touchbar that don't require looking at it. For instance I set it up so that sliding two fingers anywhere on the touchbar changes the volume.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- monadic2 6y ago
  Personally I find more screen real estate doesn’t do anything for my productivity, which is rarely mechanically limited.

williamdclt 6y ago

> I just have no use for a touchbar I find this very narrow-minded. You can't imagine a single thing that a programmable tactile interface would bring over keys (that you probably can't reliably touch-type either, fn keys are far)? I never looked at my keyboard either. I still don't, I look at my touchbar from time to time to do things that would take me longer to do if I had to move a cursor (checking the time, my next calendar event, controlling music amongst a dozen things)

melq 6y ago
I agree that there are probably some cool uses for the touch bar if you put some thought in to tailoring it to your work flow, but it is not a tactile interface. Keys are a tactile interface. You can't discern anything from the touchbar by touch, its a flat piece of glass. Personally, I've never spent any time trying to customize the touch bar because I am never using my laptop without an external keyboard, because of how fuckin' terrible the built in one is. So happy they added some travel back to the keys. I have put off buying a new laptop for years because of how much I hate that stupid keyboard.
monadic2 6y ago
> I still don't, I look at my touchbar from time to time to do things that would take me longer to do if I had to move a cursor (checking the time, my next calendar event, controlling music amongst a dozen things) Moving the mouse doesn't really bother me, and there are a million ways to wire functionality to keyboard expressions or in-UI functionality. I do miss my hardware volume, prev track, next track, play/pause functionality exactly because I could use them easily without shifting focus at all, even to my keyboard. OTOH I'm not holding my breath for Apple to meet my needs, they aren't that kind of company.

breuleux 6y ago

I mean, you can always use more screen. On my touchbar I display the time, battery, weather. I also have a script to start a timer and display the time remaining on it (or the output of any script, really). It saves some screen estate. It's nice! Also there are actions you can program on the touchbar that don't require looking at it. For instance I set it up so that sliding two fingers anywhere on the touchbar changes the volume.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
monadic2 6y ago
Personally I find more screen real estate doesn’t do anything for my productivity, which is rarely mechanically limited.