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Nyancat on the touchbar

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Re: Nyancat on the touchbar

#41
post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You mean like the ginormous trackpad directly beneath the keyboard? Wouldn't it be cool if they built scrubbing/scrolling right into that? Also, dynamic shortcuts! Like the kind you get with BetterTouchTool[1]? [1] https://www.boastr.net/

I haven't actually tried it yet, but by watching the launch demo and several screenshots of touch bar on app like Photos or Final Cut Pro I can see that: - Touch Bar is probably better on scrubbing/scrolling because you can actually see the zoomed out content, like the entire timeline of the movie on FCP. - I haven't tried Boastr. I am sure it's useful and faster for pro. But on first look it's pretty complicated. It…

So scrubbing on a tiny screen where your finger occludes the items you need to see? Otherwise, the trackpad or screen itself would make more sense....

Re: Nyancat on the touchbar

#42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You mean like the ginormous trackpad directly beneath the keyboard? Wouldn't it be cool if they built scrubbing/scrolling right into that? Also, dynamic shortcuts! Like the kind you get with BetterTouchTool[1]? [1] https://www.boastr.net/

No. Ye gods no. O' how I despise the new trackpads that aren't merely trackpad pointing devices, but also buttons, scrollbars and other bullshit I never wanted too. Christ. I need to move the fucking mouse cursor. And, shit on me, I did not intend on fucking clicking or swiping anything, or an other absurdly tangential but obliquely imaginable bullshit, God damn it. The worst is when you have to press the trackpad to…

Have you tried Apple's recent trackpads with the Force Touch sensor and haptic feedback?

In my experience, the fact that the trackpad no longer physically moves when you press down on it to click makes really cuts down on the problem of the cursor moving during the click, as does the greatly improved uniformity of the force required. Being able to adjust the force required to click is also quite nice.

I was never quite satisfied with Apple's hinged trackpads (or the standalone bluetooth trackpad with the click mechanism in the rubber feet) as a replacement for the physical button despite the trackpad size increase it enabled, but the latest generation strikes me as almost perfect.

Re: Nyancat on the touchbar

#43
post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I haven't actually tried it yet, but by watching the launch demo and several screenshots of touch bar on app like Photos or Final Cut Pro I can see that: - Touch Bar is probably better on scrubbing/scrolling because you can actually see the zoomed out content, like the entire timeline of the movie on FCP. - I haven't tried Boastr. I am sure it's useful and faster for pro. But on first look it's pretty complicated. It…

So scrubbing on a tiny screen where your finger occludes the items you need to see? Otherwise, the trackpad or screen itself would make more sense....

I think there's something to what you're saying here. That's often been an argument for the mouse/pointer vs touch screen as well. How is this different from using a touch screen in general? Or are you saying that's problematic as well? Having an additional Touch Bar to effectively increase screen real estate by removing the necessity of dedicating screen space to the slider control seems like a win.

I don't do video editing or anything like that. My experience with a slider is pretty much limited to Netflix and such on my tablet :) Seems to work pretty well there. I can see how it might not work as well for fine-grained work. But that's an argument for touch screens in general, isn't it? Or do you think there's a distinction between Touch Bar and touch screen?

Caveat: On some video sliders, you can move vertically as well to increase/dilate the resolution of the horizontal movement. You won't have the same room with the touch screen. A couple options I can think of: use the track pad or a key press to modify the Touch Bar tracking; or perhaps track the speed of movement on the Touch Bar to modify the resolution, e.g., slower movement, higher resolution.

Re: Nyancat on the touchbar

#44
post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Fear not though, they'll still happily lag behind current hardware for better margins. They don't "lag behind current hardware for better margins". The CPU class they use in the MBPr line is still unavailable from Intel. Early "Kaby Lake" PC laptops use other, more power hungry, Kaby Lake models, and even those in limited runs. If they wanted to achieve better margins in any way, they could use way worse constructi…

Are you referring to the i7-6700HQ that was released in 2015? The CPU that's present in the 15" Retina MacBook Pro? Or is there a different CPU that nobody else is privy to?

>Are you referring to the i7-6700HQ that was released in 2015? The CPU that's present in the 15" Retina MacBook Pro?

No, I'm referring to the equivalent to the i7-6700HQ Kaby Lake CPU, that Intel still hasn't delivered...

Re: Nyancat on the touchbar

#46
post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think Apple will ever do a detachable. They're problematic and have very limited use cases.

I'm unfamiliar with what detachable implies here. What's the distinction between a detachable and something like an iPad with a Smart Keyboard? Is a Surface Book or a Surface Pro a detachable?

I think he's talking about what I would call a "convertible," e.g. Lenovo's portable Yoga range. Something that can be both a proper laptop (by the popular definition) and a tablet.

Re: Nyancat on the touchbar

#47

I thought about putting super mario on that bar.

I want to see 1D snake. No inputs required and the player wins every time.

edit: the player actually loses in all cases but one, with a random score

Re: Nyancat on the touchbar

#48
So... just about the touchbar and not this particular project:

The touchbar is on the keyboard, almost perpendicularly (and many times at an obtuse angle) opposite to the screen. So I have to move my head up and down all the time. This is not an issue with the regular keyboard because it has physical buttons which don't change their meaning, so I have memorized the layout and I can use my muscle memory.

To avoid moving human head up and down, maybe they should have put it adjacent below or above the screen, you know. And while they were at it, maybe they should have just merged it into the screen seamlessly... Oh, and while they were at that, they could make the entire screen a touch-screen instead of just a small bar. Just imagine... a touchscreen laptop. Now that would be amazing, right?

Re: Nyancat on the touchbar

#49
post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I haven't actually tried it yet, but by watching the launch demo and several screenshots of touch bar on app like Photos or Final Cut Pro I can see that: - Touch Bar is probably better on scrubbing/scrolling because you can actually see the zoomed out content, like the entire timeline of the movie on FCP. - I haven't tried Boastr. I am sure it's useful and faster for pro. But on first look it's pretty complicated. It…

So scrubbing on a tiny screen where your finger occludes the items you need to see? Otherwise, the trackpad or screen itself would make more sense....

No, sir. In fact you can still see both the current content on the Macbook screen and the entire timeline on the Touch Bar. On trackpad, you need to actually move the pointer to the content before you can scrub, and it's not really that fast. If you manipulate directly on the screen, isn't it will block the view?

IMHO, as far as I understand it, Touch Bar is a bridge that connects the static nature of the keyboard with the dynamic nature of the screen. It is not intended to replace keyboard nor the screen. It is there to augment and extend them.

Touch bar is perfect for this job, considering:

- You can't beat the fast input from fixed keyboard + muscle memory.

- Touch screen on a laptop is really not ergonomic, your arm will get tired fast.

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