Apple kills the non-Touch Bar MacBook Pro • Hacker News Board

Re: Apple kills the non-Touch Bar MacBook Pro

#111

Post by stu_k » Tue, Jul 09, 2019, 5:20 PM UTC

eropple wrote: post #82

Eric_WVGG wrote: post #24

This thread is going to dissolve into a pile-up on the Touch Bar, so I wanna jump in front of this. Readers of this site are mostly “hackers,” however mutated or dumbed-down that term has become over the years, correct? Everyone here has their windows and spaces just so, a full complement of shortcuts and trackpad gestures, and if they're serious about the Macintosh tools like TextExpander. As standard as GUIs are, w…

I am a touch typist. I never look down at the keyboard, ever. The only time the Touch Bar is involved is when I accidentally switch tabs because the Touch Bar buttons trip even while you're pressing the 2 or 3 key on the keyboard, and then I'm lost in a different tab than the one I was working on in the first place. Is there a preset that never shows anything on the touch bar, ever , except for the Escape key and the…

System Preferences > Keyboard > Customize Touch Bar (at bottom). Drag off buttons you don't want, drag on buttons you do.

Not 5 seconds, but probably less than a minute.

Re: Apple kills the non-Touch Bar MacBook Pro

#112

Post by lloeki » Tue, Jul 09, 2019, 5:20 PM UTC

Kluny wrote: post #83

lloeki wrote: post #61

I am a developer. The Touch Bar is useless to me. I remapped Caps lock to Esc expecting to be annoyed, but still hit Esc nonetheless because it works. And I deftly adjust volume using the Touch Bar slider using press-and-slide (not tap then pick-and-slide), relying on the += key for tactile positioning (but the position itself is largely muscle memory by now) I am also a musician. The Touch Bar is fantastic to adjust…

> Touch Bar is useless to me. I don't get it, the rest of your comment is mostly positive?

"as a developer"; and "useless" in the literal sense: it could be the Touch Bar or anything else, I could care less because I don't use that part of the keyboard.

Even if it were annoying for the non-development functions I use it for when developing (volume control is not exactly "development", only auxiliary at best) I'd just remap them to actual keyboard shortcuts.

But it's not.

What's "annoying" is apps that could make it useful but put nonsense actions in there because horror vacui, not making use of its potential; but it's only so in an intellectual way, pragmatically I just ignore the Touch Bar in such cases and use the app as if I had if there was none.

Re: Apple kills the non-Touch Bar MacBook Pro

#113

Post by revicon » Tue, Jul 09, 2019, 5:20 PM UTC

ngngngng wrote: post #6

Disclaimer: I like the touchbar. I swapped escape and caps lock, installed Pock, and never looked back. This is my last MacBook. Xubuntu on a Thinkpad x1 carbon works great for everything I do, at a fraction of the price, with a keyboard the doesn't stop working with dust, and with more than just USB-C.

> Xubuntu on a Thinkpad x1

Was this install pretty painless? I'm due to buy a new laptop and Thinkpads are where I'm thinking about moving to. The x1 carbon and the T480. It's too bad that models after the T480 don't have a removable battery.

Re: Apple kills the non-Touch Bar MacBook Pro

#114

Post by pickle-wizard » Tue, Jul 09, 2019, 5:20 PM UTC

xfour wrote: post #37

jimmy_f wrote: post #14

Is the baseline MacBook Air sufficient for a CS major? I don’t want to spend extra for the pro.

I use the 2018 MacBook Air, 1.6ghz 16gb ram as a developer / development manager and it is faster than the 2015 pro it replaced with similar specs. The only thing I've seen it slow down on is compiling Rust, but I think that's just because that operation is slow. Jetbrains IDEs works fine, not sure about XCode haven't done much with this machine yet in Mac Development.

Don't know why you are getting down voted. I have the same machine and use it for development. Works just fine for me, and I have a couple of VMs running with my stack on it.

The only thing I've found lacking is the Kerbal Space Program doesn't run very well on it. It runs but the fam quickly ramps up to 100% and get annoying.

Re: Apple kills the non-Touch Bar MacBook Pro

#115

Post by sbr464 » Tue, Jul 09, 2019, 5:21 PM UTC

Idea: Add gesture support.

Two finger slide for brightness or volume. Different from/to direction with 2+ fingers, maps to different functions, to ease use without looking down.

Re: Apple kills the non-Touch Bar MacBook Pro

#116

Post by darkarmani » Tue, Jul 09, 2019, 5:22 PM UTC

patejam wrote: post #12

jtdev wrote: post #4

It’s unfortunate that so many design decisions are made with little regard for the true utility of what’s being designed, of which the touch bar has essentially zero.

What utility did the previous bar have? Volume changing? Screen brightness? Those are better with the touchbar. Escape key for vim or whatever? Switch your caps lock with escape! You should have been doing that the whole time! The actual function keys? I don't use them enough to need them showing up all the time. And an extra key to get them up again is no big deal. I agree that the touch bar doesn't add a whole lot…

> Escape key for vim or whatever? Switch your caps lock with escape! You should have been doing that the whole time!

Control is already mapped there because apple put fn at the bottom left corner! Esc is the only key i think i really need that is missing. It needs to be a physical key. Why design something where the right way to use it is immediately remap keys?

Re: Apple kills the non-Touch Bar MacBook Pro

#117

Post by la_barba » Tue, Jul 09, 2019, 5:24 PM UTC

Eric_WVGG wrote: post #24

This thread is going to dissolve into a pile-up on the Touch Bar, so I wanna jump in front of this. Readers of this site are mostly “hackers,” however mutated or dumbed-down that term has become over the years, correct? Everyone here has their windows and spaces just so, a full complement of shortcuts and trackpad gestures, and if they're serious about the Macintosh tools like TextExpander. As standard as GUIs are, w…

I think 'hacker' is too generic. Fiddling with the OS is just one form of hacking. Not every hacker enjoys doing that. One aspect of hacking the OS is dealing with the breakage when you end up with a system state that isn't part of some devs text matrix. I think a 'Pro' or 'Workstation' or similar badge should mean that the system is conservative from a UX standpoint, and delivers on performance and reliability. Maybe Apples gamble was that this new UX would cause a revolution in productivity.

Re: Apple kills the non-Touch Bar MacBook Pro

#118

Post by turtlebits » Tue, Jul 09, 2019, 5:26 PM UTC

TYPE_FASTER wrote: post #110

Eric_WVGG wrote: post #24

This thread is going to dissolve into a pile-up on the Touch Bar, so I wanna jump in front of this. Readers of this site are mostly “hackers,” however mutated or dumbed-down that term has become over the years, correct? Everyone here has their windows and spaces just so, a full complement of shortcuts and trackpad gestures, and if they're serious about the Macintosh tools like TextExpander. As standard as GUIs are, w…

I can't type on the keyboard without accidentally triggering the Touch Bar. I really wanted to hack it, but wow is it annoying. I have to relearn typing because of it. If there was a small gap between the top of the physical keyboard and the touch bar, that might be enough to prevent false taps. Or I have to hack the Touch Bar to figure out where I'm accidentally hitting it, and don't put any buttons there. I'm also…

I don't get this - wouldn't you just accidentally press the F-keys if the touch bar wasn't there?

Also, when my fingers are on home row, I can't even reach the touch bar without overextending/completely flattening my hand, which is hard to accidentally do while typing (and I have larger than normal hands).

Re: Apple kills the non-Touch Bar MacBook Pro

#119

Post by mclehman » Tue, Jul 09, 2019, 5:26 PM UTC

js2 wrote: post #91

josho wrote: post #17

The Touch Bar was what finally pushed me over the edge to remap caps lock to escape. I'm shocked at how much I enjoy ESC being close to the home row (I'm not even a big vim user). For this change alone I am glad to have the Touch Bar.

I use caps lock as control. It would be hard to relearn that muscle memory.

You could have both, I've never needed to hold down escape or tap control.

That said, I've had caps lock bound to backspace for years, so I'm not advocating for something I do myself.

Re: Apple kills the non-Touch Bar MacBook Pro

#120

Post by drivingmenuts » Tue, Jul 09, 2019, 5:27 PM UTC

Touch Bar as a concept is a good idea, but it should be an accessory, not a built-in thing.

It’s the reason I use a Das Keyboard instead of the laptop keyboard when doing just about everything now. It’s too easy to fat finger that blasted thing.