This is what Touch Bar should have been from the beginning IMO. I've been on the fence to upgrade my 2012 MBP. I've been concerned about buying into the Touch Bar hardware when it seems like it is not coming to any other Macs.<p>Why should I devote time to learning Touch Bar and trying to find ways to integrate it with my workflow when keyboard shortcuts are more than enough—and probably better? What happens when I sit down at my iMac where I spend >50% of my time?<p>Pock. has the answer. Turn the Touch Bar into the Mac Dock. Full screen everything and still have quick visuals on app notifications. Don't have to command-tabtabtabtab to get to a different open app—just tap it on the dock in Touch Bar. It's the perfect solution to an actual problem—give me more space on a small screen without sacrificing any of the experience.
Coincidentally I also just upgraded my personal laptop from a 2012 retina MacBook Pro to the 2019 i9 MacBook Pro!<p>Long story short I think the touchbar is totally useless. I have it set to emulate regular function keys right now (expose, launchpad etc)<p>However everything else is top notch and well worth it. The touchid is fantastic, and you will immediately enjoy the difference. Screen is amazing, 8 cores is super nice. Also I might be in the minority but I actually prefer the feel of the keyboard vs the previous unibody keys.<p>Touchbar is a dud but the 2019 version is well worth it otherwise imho.
I'm not a lawyer, but I would consider revisiting your icon[0]. It looks identical to Patreon's[1] with a period/full-stop. On a technical note, this looks pretty cool and may have helped me hold off on ditching my mac products if I knew about it sooner!<p>[0] <a href="https://pock.dev/assets/img/brand/pock_logo_w.png" rel="nofollow">https://pock.dev/assets/img/brand/pock_logo_w.png</a><p>[1] <a href="https://c5.patreon.com/external/logo/guidelines/icon_color_variations.jpg" rel="nofollow">https://c5.patreon.com/external/logo/guidelines/icon_color_v...</a>
IMO cmd+tab is far superior since it requires less movement from the rest position. I can navigate contexts extremely efficiently. I also use cmd+~ a lot for in-app window switching.<p>I do like the idea of having the touch-bar as a notification center though, that would be pretty helpful.<p>I have my Macbook on a stand with an external keyboard. Besides being ergonomically better like that, I also missed the physical esc button way too much and would often accidentally hit the touch escape with my left pinky. Being a touch button all you need to do is graze it and ESCAPE!!1
The touch bar doesn't give you the ability to touch it without click like a key. It also replaces all the f keys and the escape key.<p>It is by far the worst thing made when working say on the bus. There is no world in which the touch bar is good in any way. There are zero benefits to it. On two years with this monstrosity I have regretted having it. And now I am seriously considering moving to windows with the new Linux subsystem.
I've been using this for the last two months on my work machine and really like it. The first week I used this machine the touch bar was an irritating distraction; then I removed everything except esc, sleep, mute, and the brightness/volume sliders. Pock makes the touch bar useful, especially the red dots for notifications.<p>My Pock settings: refresh every 30s, uncheck "hide control strip" and "hide persistent items" so I can put often-used folders in the dock to see them on the touch bar. Check "hide finder", "hide trash", and "launch at login". (On this last: once or twice an update or wake has left me with the default touch bar and I've had to manually restart Pock.)<p>My Dock settings: shrink the size down, move it to the left or right, uncheck "minimize windows into application items", check "automatically show and hide the Dock", uncheck "show recent applications in Dock". Unfortunately there is still no way to entirely remove the Dock.
I used to love the mac keyboard. Of any non Apple laptop it was superior... until I tried out a ThinkPad just over a year ago. I honestly don’t think I could own anything other than a ThinkPad from now on for the keyboard alone.
I'd recommend BetterTouchTool and things like finger swipes for volume up/down and brightness up/down and showing things like Spotify. Originally started with Vas3k preset but eventually replaced things with the built in widgets and gestures
I was skeptical then I installed it and I can't believe MacOS doesn't ship with this! It's actually making the bar useful.<p>One bug I noticed is you can get in a <esc> <esc> situation, with twice the button. But since you miss <esc> button all the time, why not having it twice; or more?
This makes sense<p>There's extra vertical space on the lower half of a MacBook, and the dock wastes vertical space on the screen<p>I normally put the dock on the side, but putting it above the keyboard works too<p>Now if only the damn keyboard had a proper escape key. Who signed off on that. Honestly.
I kind of like the Touch Bar.<p>It's hackable, programmable, and versatile. I have never used F keys and making Caps Lock the new Escape key works better for me anyway since I have small hands.<p>How can you not like having Lemmings in your Touch Bar? [0]<p>I have no problems with the keyboard (my favorite is actually the PowerBook Pro Aluminum Keyboard), but it being basically the only moving part and arguably gets the most use of any component on the computer, it would be nice if it was user replaceable (the battery too, but ...). I'd like to always have a spare around or the ability to take it out and every once in a while get any dirt or whatever can get in under the keys out.<p>[0] <a href="https://github.com/erikolsson/Touch-Bar-Lemmings" rel="nofollow">https://github.com/erikolsson/Touch-Bar-Lemmings</a>
This is neat. However, I use the dock for dragging/dropping so it doesn't help me.<p>I detest the TouchBar and think it's one of the worst ideas to come out of Apple in a long time. I'm waiting for them to end this joke.
I use MTMR[1], My TouchBar My Rules. Great JSON-based customization. Built in Dock applet included (a great pomodoro applet as well, my fav).<p>The sample presets are kind of cluttered, but removing some of the items and making others was ultra simple. If you know AppleScript you can pretty much any button.<p>[1] <a href="https://github.com/Toxblh/MTMR/" rel="nofollow">https://github.com/Toxblh/MTMR/</a>
If you want to have Esc/Fn keys back on models with touch bar, buy one of those keyboard covers for non-touchbar 13" model, glue some little/low pieces of gum under Esc/Fn keys on the cover and then just place over the keyboard/touch bar. You'll have some tactile feedback and a lower chance of accidentally executing some function you didn't need. You can also glue gorilla glass strip on top of touch bar to reduce sensitivity/number of unwanted touches.<p>Frankly, I am not sure why there is no "glueable" 3rd party Esc/Fn rubber membrane over touch bar with USB-C output produced by anyone to address this major design flaw for high-performance Apple devices...
i would recommend to take a look at <a href="https://goldenchaos.net/goldenchaos-btt.html" rel="nofollow">https://goldenchaos.net/goldenchaos-btt.html</a> too.<p>it has the list of open apps and more (and it's highly configurable). it's not exactly the dock, though, but i find it more useful.<p>it needs better touch tool (<a href="https://folivora.ai" rel="nofollow">https://folivora.ai</a>), but that's quite cheap for how much it offers.
Great idea.<p>A related tool I highly, highly recommend is BetterTouchTool - you can <i>completely</i> customize your Touch Bar to show and do almost anything you want it to do, based on the app context you're in. You can do what this does but 100 other things as well.<p>It's made the Touch Bar actually worth it for me.
This is pretty great. Only I wish it only showed when I clicked on the desktop (Since Finder does nothing else with the TouchBar) or swipe up from the bottom. Parallels actually does this same thing (minus swiping) for the task bar in Windows guests but switches to app specific bars when you open Office or a browser. I'm in the camp that finds the TouchBar really awesome. Never used function keys (except F5) but I use the TouchBar all the time in IntelliJ, iTunes, Word/Excel and it's great in PowerPoint when scrolling to just the slide you want.<p>I also love the clicky feel of the keyboard so maybe I'm just special...
Interesting idea, but I've found that making my own custom <i>static</i> touchbar has been the most useful way to use this hardware. Followed this article: <a href="http://vas3k.com/blog/touchbar/" rel="nofollow">http://vas3k.com/blog/touchbar/</a><p>I personally have a mix of app launchers, brightness/volume controls and a play/pause button.
Late to the party, but I just randomly realized today that copy & paste syncs across iOS and my iMac. Was surprisingly convenient. Apparently it’s been around since Sierra, but my settings are now in sync enough to just work.
I dont know, I use Rocket which seems to be similar to Pock but after almost a year with it I havent actually made use of it once.<p>edit: IMHO the problem is the dock itself. it just sucks. even windows 10 taskbar is way better
This makes so much sense! The location of the Touch Bar UI is conceptually unfriendly. We're accustomed to a touch pad closest to us but now we have two touch interfaces separated by a huge keyboard-gulf. Moving the dock to the Touch Bar makes sense for the Touch Bar because i. it's a very small shift in location, and ii. dock icons are more direct action buttons compared to more abstract pointing and gestures we can to with the touch pad.
In a similar vein, I’ve been using TouchBarEmojis[0] which turns the TouchBar into a most frequently used emoji selector and really enjoy it now.<p>[0] <a href="https://github.com/gabriellorin/touch-bar-emojis" rel="nofollow">https://github.com/gabriellorin/touch-bar-emojis</a>
Am I able to see both the app icons and the control keys at the same time like the screenshot (<a href="https://pock.dev/assets/img/preview/pock_preview.png" rel="nofollow">https://pock.dev/assets/img/preview/pock_preview.png</a>) shows?
can’t understand the love for this here. the touch bar is not a HUD (heads up display). you still have to context switch and you can’t touch type the app you want. it might be better than the default touch bar it’s not better and adds no value over the auto hiding dock.
I'll plug another touch bar tool here.<p>Know how your $3,000 MacBook Pro keyboard keeps breaking? Know what's not broken and close to your keyboard? The touch bar. So I built a keyboard into the touchbar: <a href="https://github.com/RubenSandwich/TouchBarKeyboard" rel="nofollow">https://github.com/RubenSandwich/TouchBarKeyboard</a>. Problem solved.<p>But seriously, OP's tool has way more utility then mine.