Re:The Life and Death of the Touch Bar: Revisiting the MacBo...
by Razengan on Saturday August 26, 2017 @11:58PM
(#15109037)
I’ve moved to an iMac + iPad setup since a couple months ago, hence the comment about finding non-Touch Bar keyboards inconvenient (even though you can use the iPad as a Mac Touch Bar with Duet [1]), but from memory:
- Changing brightness or volume by swiping in a single motion.
- When you’re typing and get a dialog/alert, tapping on the Touch Bar is much quicker and requires less movement than moving your hand to the trackpad or mouse and clicking on a screen button.
- When typing and having to choose something from a list, like the label for a contact (“Home”, “Work”), it’s again quicker to just tap on the Touch Bar than to move the mouse pointer to open the dropdown box and click on an item onscreen.
- Ability to have more shortcuts with different types of controls (sliders etc.) than you can with Fn keys + modifiers, and labels/icons make it unnecessary to remember which Fn number with which modifier does what.
- Show various status items on the Touch Bar and other customization with BetterTouchTool [2].
The Touch Bar is a replacement of the Fn keys, not the keyboard. It’s a complement to the keyboard and trackpad, not a secondary screen (although you can hack it to use it as one [2]).
- Changing brightness or volume by swiping in a single motion.
- When you’re typing and get a dialog/alert, tapping on the Touch Bar is much quicker and requires less movement than moving your hand to the trackpad or mouse and clicking on a screen button.
- When typing and having to choose something from a list, like the label for a contact (“Home”, “Work”), it’s again quicker to just tap on the Touch Bar than to move the mouse pointer to open the dropdown box and click on an item onscreen.
- Ability to have more shortcuts with different types of controls (sliders etc.) than you can with Fn keys + modifiers, and labels/icons make it unnecessary to remember which Fn number with which modifier does what.
- Show various status items on the Touch Bar and other customization with BetterTouchTool [2].
The Touch Bar is a replacement of the Fn keys, not the keyboard. It’s a complement to the keyboard and trackpad, not a secondary screen (although you can hack it to use it as one [2]).
[1] https://www.duetdisplay.com
[2] https://www.boastr.net/bettertouchtool-touch-bar-customizati...