6 ms·

Touch Bar is great for sliding, but terrible for button presses as it often rejects very quick button presses and of course you can't use it by feel. 90% of wh

by npunt 6y ago

Touch Bar is great for sliding, but terrible for button presses as it often rejects very quick button presses and of course you can't use it by feel. 90% of what I want out of the Touch Bar is the ability to slide up/down brightness or volume. For some reason they don't implement it that way - its either a double action of tapping to open sliders then sliding, or buttons that take several taps to adjust how I like. Maybe my use cases are crazy... I just don't get it though. Glad to see someone trying to use it for what it offers.

ohazi 6y ago
I don't understand why anyone would prefer a volume slider to discrete up/down buttons. I almost never want to quickly slide to a specific volume, it's always "this is a little too loud" or "I didn't quite hear that." The action I want is a quick relative tick up or down, then listen again to see if the improvement is adequate, then repeat as necessary until it's perfect. Sliders are good for quickly moving by a large amount to a rough absolute position. But they're utter crap for fine adjustment. Am I the only one who gets infuriated when trying to get to the exact spot I want by rolling my finger ever so slightly to get a slider to move by half a pixel? It takes forever and it gives you RSI!
- yakkers 6y ago
  You can 'flick' the volume or brightness button on the Touch Bar to the left or right to turn down/up respectively. It even works holding down Shift+Option to enable more fine control of either.
  - whywhywhywhy 6y ago
    > It even works holding down Shift+Option to enable more fine control So now I need to use two hands and look at the control to use it when the previous worked fine one handed on touch alone.
    - wingerlang 6y ago
      Fine grained control (+0.1 "dots") still required two hands before I think?
      - whywhywhywhy 6y ago
        Can be done one handed (opt+shift+vol) but it wasn't needed to fix inaccuracy in the default interface as the post I replied to suggested
  - koynoyno 6y ago
    I missed Shift+Option fine control and didn't know that. Thank you!
- crobertsbmw 6y ago
  Sometimes I just want to do a slow fade to set the mood you know...
- qppo 6y ago
  > they're utter crap for fine adjustment I think if you'd make this suggestion to audio engineers they'd throw their consoles at you
  - ohazi 6y ago
    Sorry, I specifically meant touch sliders, not physical sliders, and especially not physical sliders with nicely tuned damped physical resistance like on expensive audio equipment.
- whywhywhywhy 6y ago
  >I don't understand why anyone would prefer a volume slider to discrete up/down buttons Blows my mind how an interface I can operate with my eyes closed on touch alone would ever be considered inferior to one I actually have to engage directly with with and change modes to access sliders.
- wingerlang 6y ago
  > I don't understand why anyone would prefer a volume slider to discrete up/down buttons. I almost never want to quickly slide to a specific volume, it's always "this is a little too loud" or "I didn't quite hear that." Have you actually used the slider to get used to it? It requires a significant-ish slide to increase/decrease a full dot. And by significant-ish I mean it is easy to adjust it less than one dot. That being said I used to think the same until I got used to it, I slide more than a few dots up and down all the time. I would not want to go back to taptaptaptap.
rillweed 6y ago
maybe i am misunderstanding you but to change the volume, or brightness sliders, you don't need to lift your finger to adjust the slider. Once you click the volume button you can slide your finger without ever picking it up. only realized it myself after a friends told me - it never seemed that obvious
- aabhay 6y ago
  Yeah volume and brightness are just a press, hold for a split second, slide. I must be in the minority, I figured it out immediately and have used the Touch Bar quite extensively. It’s especially useful for presentations. Control spotify, volume, and switch slides back and forth all in one interface without leaving the presenter view.
funnypants 6y ago
Try Better Touch Tool-Golden Chaos. 3 finger slide does screen brightness, 2 finger slide does volume (you can customise them too) https://community.folivora.ai/t/goldenchaos-btt-the-complete-touch-bar-ui-replacement/1281 https://community.folivora.ai/t/goldenchaos-btt-the-complete...
- pizza 6y ago
  Dang, that utility looks insanely good
  - mercer 6y ago
    I found the Golden Chaos package to offer too much and instead just spent a bit of time setting things up to my liking, and now I couldn't do without the Touch Bar! - dock widget that shows open apps and allows me to switch quickly. - Spotify widget that shows current track/album (with art) and controls. - a custom date/time display that also shows the week number. - battery level with 'time-to-full-charge' indicator. - mute button. But even more useful are the swipe gestures I added: two-finger swipe anywhere turns the entire bar into a volume control, and a three-finger swipe does the same for brightness. BTT offers a ton more though. I have a few gestures configured for the trackpad. three-finger up and down for brightness and shift + three fingers for volume if I'm too lazy to go for the touchbar. And I use a weird four-finger tapping gesture for mute and to lock my laptop ('rap' my fingers from left to right to mute, and from right to left to lock). Then there's window sizing and, if not for Keyboard Maestro, app launching via keyboard shortcuts. Anyways, I occasionally miss the function keys, but what the Touch Bar can do now provides enough to offset that.
- raihansaputra 6y ago
  A free alternative to BTT-GC if you don't have BTT is MTMR. Has the 3/2 finger slide too. https://github.com/Toxblh/MTMR https://github.com/Toxblh/MTMR
taurath 6y ago
Volume control taking 2 taps is a bit crazy to me, but I'll bet in testing they found that people brushed against the volume bar too much if it was always there. I accidentaly graze the "play" button often. I'd love to see if "buttons with screens on them" might work out better for me, then I could lock the top-right ones to the media controls. Maybe leave a small slider on the top-left or middle.
ericwood 6y ago
You can tap and immediately slide without lifting your finger to do that! I feel the same way and this is the closest thing the touchbar has to a killer feature.
- deeblering4 6y ago
  I can just tap/hold F1 and F2 to control brightness, and same for F11/F12 for volume. Isn't it more effort to tap the correct spot on a touch screen and slide than simply press a key?
  - ericwood 6y ago
    That's personal preference! I've found the sliding to be faster and more precise in my day to day usage but I wouldn't expect everyone to feel the same way.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
patrickserrano 6y ago
You can just press and slide on the volume/brightness buttons without needing 2 taps.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
antihero 6y ago
Honestly I've just picked up a cheap(ish) audio interface (mine is an M-Audio 192|4) and now I have a giant knob that I can use to get the perfect volume, and as a bonus, it disables the volume keys on the touchbar so I don't keep bashing them when typing.

by npunt 6y ago

ohazi 6y ago

I don't understand why anyone would prefer a volume slider to discrete up/down buttons. I almost never want to quickly slide to a specific volume, it's always "this is a little too loud" or "I didn't quite hear that." The action I want is a quick relative tick up or down, then listen again to see if the improvement is adequate, then repeat as necessary until it's perfect. Sliders are good for quickly moving by a large amount to a rough absolute position. But they're utter crap for fine adjustment. Am I the only one who gets infuriated when trying to get to the exact spot I want by rolling my finger ever so slightly to get a slider to move by half a pixel? It takes forever and it gives you RSI!

yakkers 6y ago
You can 'flick' the volume or brightness button on the Touch Bar to the left or right to turn down/up respectively. It even works holding down Shift+Option to enable more fine control of either.
- whywhywhywhy 6y ago
  > It even works holding down Shift+Option to enable more fine control So now I need to use two hands and look at the control to use it when the previous worked fine one handed on touch alone.
  - wingerlang 6y ago
    Fine grained control (+0.1 "dots") still required two hands before I think?
    - whywhywhywhy 6y ago
      Can be done one handed (opt+shift+vol) but it wasn't needed to fix inaccuracy in the default interface as the post I replied to suggested
- koynoyno 6y ago
  I missed Shift+Option fine control and didn't know that. Thank you!
crobertsbmw 6y ago
Sometimes I just want to do a slow fade to set the mood you know...
qppo 6y ago
> they're utter crap for fine adjustment I think if you'd make this suggestion to audio engineers they'd throw their consoles at you
- ohazi 6y ago
  Sorry, I specifically meant touch sliders, not physical sliders, and especially not physical sliders with nicely tuned damped physical resistance like on expensive audio equipment.
whywhywhywhy 6y ago
>I don't understand why anyone would prefer a volume slider to discrete up/down buttons Blows my mind how an interface I can operate with my eyes closed on touch alone would ever be considered inferior to one I actually have to engage directly with with and change modes to access sliders.
wingerlang 6y ago
> I don't understand why anyone would prefer a volume slider to discrete up/down buttons. I almost never want to quickly slide to a specific volume, it's always "this is a little too loud" or "I didn't quite hear that." Have you actually used the slider to get used to it? It requires a significant-ish slide to increase/decrease a full dot. And by significant-ish I mean it is easy to adjust it less than one dot. That being said I used to think the same until I got used to it, I slide more than a few dots up and down all the time. I would not want to go back to taptaptaptap.

rillweed 6y ago

maybe i am misunderstanding you but to change the volume, or brightness sliders, you don't need to lift your finger to adjust the slider. Once you click the volume button you can slide your finger without ever picking it up. only realized it myself after a friends told me - it never seemed that obvious

aabhay 6y ago
Yeah volume and brightness are just a press, hold for a split second, slide. I must be in the minority, I figured it out immediately and have used the Touch Bar quite extensively. It’s especially useful for presentations. Control spotify, volume, and switch slides back and forth all in one interface without leaving the presenter view.

funnypants 6y ago

Try Better Touch Tool-Golden Chaos. 3 finger slide does screen brightness, 2 finger slide does volume (you can customise them too) https://community.folivora.ai/t/goldenchaos-btt-the-complete-touch-bar-ui-replacement/1281 https://community.folivora.ai/t/goldenchaos-btt-the-complete...

pizza 6y ago
Dang, that utility looks insanely good
- mercer 6y ago
  I found the Golden Chaos package to offer too much and instead just spent a bit of time setting things up to my liking, and now I couldn't do without the Touch Bar! - dock widget that shows open apps and allows me to switch quickly. - Spotify widget that shows current track/album (with art) and controls. - a custom date/time display that also shows the week number. - battery level with 'time-to-full-charge' indicator. - mute button. But even more useful are the swipe gestures I added: two-finger swipe anywhere turns the entire bar into a volume control, and a three-finger swipe does the same for brightness. BTT offers a ton more though. I have a few gestures configured for the trackpad. three-finger up and down for brightness and shift + three fingers for volume if I'm too lazy to go for the touchbar. And I use a weird four-finger tapping gesture for mute and to lock my laptop ('rap' my fingers from left to right to mute, and from right to left to lock). Then there's window sizing and, if not for Keyboard Maestro, app launching via keyboard shortcuts. Anyways, I occasionally miss the function keys, but what the Touch Bar can do now provides enough to offset that.
raihansaputra 6y ago
A free alternative to BTT-GC if you don't have BTT is MTMR. Has the 3/2 finger slide too. https://github.com/Toxblh/MTMR https://github.com/Toxblh/MTMR

taurath 6y ago

Volume control taking 2 taps is a bit crazy to me, but I'll bet in testing they found that people brushed against the volume bar too much if it was always there. I accidentaly graze the "play" button often. I'd love to see if "buttons with screens on them" might work out better for me, then I could lock the top-right ones to the media controls. Maybe leave a small slider on the top-left or middle.

ericwood 6y ago

You can tap and immediately slide without lifting your finger to do that! I feel the same way and this is the closest thing the touchbar has to a killer feature.

deeblering4 6y ago
I can just tap/hold F1 and F2 to control brightness, and same for F11/F12 for volume. Isn't it more effort to tap the correct spot on a touch screen and slide than simply press a key?
- ericwood 6y ago
  That's personal preference! I've found the sliding to be faster and more precise in my day to day usage but I wouldn't expect everyone to feel the same way.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

patrickserrano 6y ago

You can just press and slide on the volume/brightness buttons without needing 2 taps.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

antihero 6y ago

Honestly I've just picked up a cheap(ish) audio interface (mine is an M-Audio 192|4) and now I have a giant knob that I can use to get the perfect volume, and as a bonus, it disables the volume keys on the touchbar so I don't keep bashing them when typing.