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A comment on Images of New MacBook Pro with Magic Toolbar Leaked in MacOS Sierra 10.12.1. Parent comment

Re:Images of New MacBook Pro with Magic Toolbar Leaked in Ma... by losvedir on Tuesday October 25, 2016 @06:49PM (#12792470)
You haven't lived until you've used Apptivate[0] to map the function keys to your most commonly used apps (I think with them "inverted" so you don't need to hold "fn"). I have F1 -> Finder, F2 -> Postico, F3 -> Chrome, F4 -> Sublime, F5 -> iTerm2, and can touch type each of them. It feels great to easily flip between those apps as necessary. It's like Cmd+Tab but goes to exactly the correct application each time.

I'll still probably get one of these MacBook Pros eventually, but the lack of F1 buttons is a loss.

[0] http://www.apptivateapp.com/

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Images of New MacBook Pro with Magic Toolbar Leaked in Ma... by Too on Wednesday October 26, 2016 @12:13AM (#12793815)
Windows has this feature built in. Win+1, 2, 3 etc maps to the location on the task bar. It's one of the best features most people didn't know existed. Swapping between applications becomes very fast and precise.
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Re:Images of New MacBook Pro with Magic Toolbar Leaked in Ma... by to3m on Wednesday October 26, 2016 @06:52AM (#12795443)
As always with Windows, though, the UX isn't quite right...

If that spot is occupied by a pinned shortcut, Windows will run that program. But it won't remember that it's done that - so if it takes a while to start, and you press the key again, it will see there's a shortcut to a program that's not yet running, and... run the program again. So while trying this feature out, and wondering why nothing was happening, I managed to open 3 copies of Unity and 7 copies of Visual Studio.

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:Images of New MacBook Pro with Magic Toolbar Leaked in Ma... by blisse on Wednesday October 26, 2016 @05:02AM (#12794961)
I'm really annoyed that more people don't know this one because this is one of the main reasons I don't like using os X.
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Re:Images of New MacBook Pro with Magic Toolbar Leaked in Ma... by hn_user2 on Tuesday October 25, 2016 @07:08PM (#12792579)
Was going to check it out, then realized it's too late. Maybe better off not knowing at this point.
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Re:Images of New MacBook Pro with Magic Toolbar Leaked in Ma... by brandall10 on Tuesday October 25, 2016 @10:21PM (#12793427)
All my most used apps are just three keypresses away -- I chord my caps-lock (remapped to ctrl) and ';' keys to bring up spotlight, type 'c' for instance for chrome, then enter. Super quick and don't have to leave the home row.
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Re:Images of New MacBook Pro with Magic Toolbar Leaked in Ma... by grincho on Tuesday October 25, 2016 @09:07PM (#12793153)
I've been doing this (with a different util) as my primary way of navigating for 20 years. It makes screen clutter irrelevant. Without physical function keys, I can't think of a way to maintain this with the same convenience, being able to do it one-handed with either hand, avoid conflicting with stock shortcuts, and not sprain my hand.

Fortunately, I use an external keyboard much of the time, which I selected almost wholly for its proper 4-groupings of function keys, letting me touch-type them.

[ Parent | on HN ]