[HN Gopher] Sampler for Mac Touchbars
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Sampler for Mac Touchbars
Author : anigbrowl
Score : 125 points
Date : 2020-07-09 19:51 UTC (3 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.synthtopia.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.synthtopia.com)
| crazygringo wrote:
| This may be the first interesting/good use for the Touch Bar many
| HN'ers have seen.
|
| But the touchbar was designed primarily for AV professionals from
| the beginning -- sliding controls for filmstrips, audio sliders,
| colors, etc.
|
| It's just that most developers have never needed to do any work
| like that, and have never used the creative apps that expose
| this, so don't see the point.
|
| But it's genuinely for the "professional" part of Pro. Not
| develop professionals, but creative professionals.
| randomdata wrote:
| _> This may be the first interesting /good use for the Touch
| Bar many HN'ers have seen._
|
| I've only recently started using a device with the TouchBar,
| but as a developer I've really enjoyed having debugging
| controls on it. It is nice being able to have the main screen
| focused on the running application and having the secondary
| debugging tools on the TouchBar.
| misnome wrote:
| How do you mean? More than the usual start stop step-in step-
| over? With physical keys you can "home" your finger and press
| without drifting or looking down at the bar, and I find that
| much easier.
|
| About the only thing I've found useful is when plugging in a
| projector and getting the "mirror or extend" buttons directly
| rather than having to remember which symbol it is. Every
| other case it's felt inferior and gotten in the way (like
| display/sound/volume access in an app that uses it)
| pishpash wrote:
| Lack of tactile feedback and fat finger issues (even while
| typing) make this unlikely to be true.
| dml2135 wrote:
| Damn, too bad it requires Catalina. I've still been hanging on to
| Mavericks for the 32-bit app support.
| tolle wrote:
| Mavericks? Do you mean Mojave? Because I don't even think
| Mavericks runs on the Touch Bar MacBooks.
| alfonsodev wrote:
| this would have made a really cool demo the day the touchbar came
| out.
| toyg wrote:
| Well, I remember one demo being a DJ scratching and so on. Not
| that far off.
| brian_herman__ wrote:
| Nice! Thanks for making it free!
| PaulDavisThe1st wrote:
| For those us without touchbars (or even an apple machine), but
| who might have been wondering just how far you could go if you
| really tried to make the mouse into an expressive musical
| instrument:
|
| DiN is Noise:
|
| https://dinisnoise.org/?what=screenshots https://dinisnoise.org/
| GordonS wrote:
| An aside, but I always thought "din" was only a Scottish word -
| does it mean noise/racket elsewhere?
| [deleted]
| pkage wrote:
| Yes, it means noise/racket everywhere--though it is primarily
| used in the UK/Ireland/Australia and fairly uncommon in the
| US.
| [deleted]
| lasryaric wrote:
| I did not know the touchbar was that capable. Great job.
| jshaqaw wrote:
| I'll probably get downvoted to Hades here but I finally upgraded
| my mid 2012 retina MacBook Pro to the latest model and I quite
| like the touch bar. Yes I know pure keyboard commands are more
| efficient but at this point in life my available bandwidth for
| memorizing too many app specific keyboard chords is limited. It's
| nice to just tap "leave" when in a Zoom call or "pause" when
| playing music.
| tartoran wrote:
| I just wish they left the F keys alone and added the touchbar
| right above. It might be cool but i find it somewhat gimmicky
| and redundant for a software developer. I guess apple always
| pushed the limits. Lets see how this fares in the next 10 years
| and whether it is adopted outside of apple
| cactus2093 wrote:
| That's the idea but IMO the major issue with it is that the
| touchbar is dedicated to the currently in-focus application.
| That's basically the opposite of what I want, if Zoom is
| already in focus I can click to leave just as fast as I can use
| the touchbar to leave. If I have switched over to a browser tab
| for taking notes and zoom is in the background, that's when it
| would be useful to be able to leave the zoom meeting from the
| touchbar.
|
| Edit: Music apps are somewhat privileged and play/pause can be
| done more globally, but it's still multiple taps, and there are
| other cases I would like to be able to use.
| gorkish wrote:
| Little apps like this demonstrate why the touchbar really is a
| useful user interface for certain things.
|
| Had Apple had the good sense to introduce it without removing an
| entire row of keys used heavily by the developers tasked with
| writing software for it it might have actually worked out.
| melling wrote:
| It took courage. ;-)
|
| I only want the Escape key and it's back. I'll trade in my 2013
| MBP for an ARM laptop next year.
| stimpson_j_cat wrote:
| Doesn't this demonstrate why the touchbar isn't very useful?
|
| Every part of this UI would be better without it--physical keys
| to play the samples, a big touchpad to use slider controls
| with, the hi-def screen to see it all happen.
|
| (It's a really neat demo)
| pampa wrote:
| Just a thought. Instead of replacing the f keys and escape,
| they should have just replaced the whole area under the
| keyboard where the trackpad is with a touch screen. It is a
| win-win. Imagine a huge touch interface where we already
| expect one, with haptic feedback AND visual feedback.
| dmitriid wrote:
| We can already imagine that. Apple increased the size of
| the touchpad for no good reason. And palm rejection
| constantly fails causing the cursor to jump as you're
| typing or pressing key shortcuts.
| makecheck wrote:
| Even if Apple could demonstrate clear value for certain niche
| applications, those applications could have been served by a
| successful add-on USB peripheral (not unlike replacing an in-
| box device with a better mouse or keyboard).
|
| Instead, they saddled every one of their users with this thing,
| where it has remained _at best_ in limbo between "occasionally
| useful" and "worse than the original". I can say without a
| doubt that the _only_ reason I finally broke down and bought a
| new laptop is because (1) they finally came to their senses
| with the physical Esc key, and (2) BetterTouchTool exists.
| stronglikedan wrote:
| I don't own a Mac, but I've heard of the touchbar. I just never
| imagined it _replaced_ the function keys. That 's insanity!
| (But I'm _still_ stewing over modern keyboards removing the
| right Win key, so I can 't lock my workstation with one hand
| any more, so don't mind me.)
| FriendlyNormie wrote:
| You've "heard of" the Touch Bar and you felt like you had a
| valuable contribution to make to this thread?
| l2p wrote:
| Right hand thumb to win key + pinky to "L" as I am getting up
| to walk away still works for me.
| stronglikedan wrote:
| My hands are pretty big, but I can only do that on non-
| full-sized keyboards. And to make matters worse I need an
| ergonomic split keyboard due to issues with my hands
| donatj wrote:
| It's interesting to me that this is the first really interesting
| use of the touch bar I've seen in the years I've owned a laptop
| with one.
|
| I'm also sad that it requires Catilina, I'm stuck on Mojave for
| the time being thanks to a number of 32 bit apps I depend on.
| intopieces wrote:
| If you're a fan of customization, BTT-GoldenChaos [0] has made
| the Touch Bar indispensable for me; I don't like using a laptop
| without a Touch Bar because of this app.
|
| [0]https://community.folivora.ai/t/goldenchaos-btt-the-
| complete...
| eksu wrote:
| Site has been hugged by HN; here is the video that is embedded on
| the page.
|
| https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=fMlmzTBF_LE
| dep_b wrote:
| The Touch Bar should have been right below the screen, where I
| actually see it. Otherwise I need to interrupt my flow by looking
| at it. I've made it somewhat more useful with Pock (using
| negative spacing) but still not blown away by it.
|
| This kind of application and many other uses would be so much
| better if it was like a part of the screen instead of the
| keyboard.
| GloriousKoji wrote:
| If it was on the screen the screen itself would slowly get
| pushed back with each interaction.
| saagarjha wrote:
| > The Touch Bar should have been right below the screen
|
| So...an extension of the screen? :P
| below43 wrote:
| I've just started using a 2020 MacBook Pro. I was previously very
| apprehensive about the touchbar (in fact, it was a key reason for
| me avoiding getting one for some time).
|
| A few days in, I'm super impressed with it, and think it is able
| to offer subtle but effective workflow improvements within
| applications. (I think I'd find it frustrating if I had an older
| version with no hardware escape key though).
| hobs wrote:
| I still just press it randomly and issue commands to
| applications constantly that I dont want, and that's after
| disabling half of it because I touched it too much :\
| throwaway744678 wrote:
| I regularly fat-finger the paste key on the touchbar (eg in
| Office apps, it sits just above the [3] key) when typing a
| key on the number row. Since you get no tactile feedback, it
| took me a few days to understand why random bits of text
| appeared spontaneously under my cursor!
| baggy_trough wrote:
| Will pay money for next Mac to have no touch bar. It's awful.
| FriendlyNormie wrote:
| Everyone who downvoted you should be tied to a board and cut in
| half with a chainsaw.
| brundolf wrote:
| Question for someone who works in music/audio: is this actually
| useful as a workflow tool, or is it just a cool tech demo/toy?
| alfonsodev wrote:
| I'm not a proffesional, but I use Garabe band to brainstorm
| ideas for songs, and often I use the software piano keyboard
| and it's annoying because you can hit other keys that are not
| assigned to notes but to shortcuts, and you have to show/hide
| the piano window that ocuppies space, so I can see having a
| piano in the touch bar (and other plugins for that matter)
| being super useful.
| colecut wrote:
| From the article: Alonso describes the app as "a demo of Samplr
| for the MacBook Touch Bar."
|
| Samplr is Alonso's full featured iPad app.
|
| From the website: *This free app is distributed as is. No
| support is provided and no future updates are planned.
|
| That said, I'm sure a talented and adventurous person could off
| pull using this. You define your limits =)
| brandonmenc wrote:
| Professionals actually do use the Touch Bar. Oak Felder seen
| here using it back in 2018 to produce on the go:
|
| https://youtu.be/FUHcYX1-9Y8?t=178
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(page generated 2020-07-09 23:00 UTC)