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0 pointsnoncoml6y ago0 comments

I don’t even mind the touchbar. Just give me back the Escape key!

0 comments

I thought this was a joke as I haven’t used a recent Mac in a while but apparently it’s not. There really isn’t an escape key!

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT207358

Rebelgecko6y ago

It's extra fun when touchbaragent hangs and you can't force quit anything

luminiferous6y ago

Personally, I just remapped capslock to esc, since I never use capslock. The touchbar does seem to hang more often nowadays, though. Especially when I'm trying to adjust the volume.

Shish2k6y ago

I remapped capslock to escape, which simultaneously gives me back a useful key and gets rid of a useless one :P

garysahota936y ago

They are basically telling us "You can't escape our future"

eridius6y ago

Not a physical one, but the hit area on the TouchBar for Esc is actually larger than the physical key was. As much as people like to complain, in my experience the Esc key is extremely easy to hit.

Ididntdothis6y ago

And take the escape key off the TouchBar. I hit it all the time by accident. I really wanted to give the TouchBar a fair shake but after two months I still think it’s beyond useless.

neotek6y ago

I feel your pain, it's my number one problem with the Touch Bar, the second being that it's almost entirely useless in its default mode.

I have two solutions for you, though: firstly, download BetterTouchTool[1] and install the GoldenChaosBTT[2] preset. It's the killer app for the Touch Bar, it turns it into a genuinely useful feature that you'll find yourself using all the time, and BTT in general is an incredibly powerful tool for customising the way you interact with your Mac.

Secondly, switching Caps Lock to the Esc key[3] has been one of the biggest productivity improvements I've made in the last decade, seriously. I wish I'd done it sooner. I've made the switch on every machine I use, even the ones without a Touch Bar.

Hope that helps!

[1] https://folivora.ai

[2] https://community.folivora.ai/t/goldenchaos-btt-a-complete-t...

[3] https://stackoverflow.com/questions/127591/using-caps-lock-a...

Ididntdothis6y ago

Thanks for the tip. I got BTT and now I only have brightness and volume sliders on the Touch Bar and no escape. Much better. Will probably do some customization but it’s already a big improvement.

microtonal6y ago

And in the default configuration I often hit the Siri button when wanting to press Touch ID or (sometimes) backspace.

The TouchBar is nice on paper, actually adds to some applications, but the current implementation is a world of hurt.

SomeOldThrow6y ago

At the minimum I’d like to be able to disable the touch bar. I only ever activate it accidentally and there is zero feedback. I never look at my keys. I really like the fingerprint scanner but it’s not worth the disruption in productivity.

m-p-36y ago

At least that, and the idea of making the touchbar an actual tray is a great idea, would like this to be natively done and keep the screen as free as possible for the actual apps.

As long as it's optional, I could see people not liking this.

hanniabu6y ago

They removed the escape key? What the.....

I'm never going to retire my 2013 MBP at this rate.

eanzenberg6y ago

I have an esc key...?

ses19846y ago

It's very easy to remap caps lock to escape.

computerex6y ago

That's not the point. You shouldn't have to map caps lock to escape.

2 more replies

SomeOldThrow6y ago

If only it were so easy to remap my hand! Caps lock is already dedicated to control and most apps don’t support ^[.

2 more replies

Lio6y ago

Not so much when you already remap the Caps lock key to Ctrl though.

noncomlOP6y ago

“You are holding it wrong”?

dkonofalski6y ago

They didn't remove it, at least not functionally. There's still an ESC, it's just on the Touch Bar now.

echelon6y ago

That's not an escape key. Please don't apologize for this.

I use vim and switch between a butterfly/touchbar Mac (work machine) and a Thinkpad (personal machine). Using the Mac keyboard has actually negatively impacted my typing speed when I use other systems! I remapped my vim keybindings, and now my muscle memory has atrophied.

This dumb machine has actually made me a worse typist. I am so frustrated.

2 more replies

acchow6y ago

MacOS supports remapping caps lock to escape. No hacks needed!

j / k navigate · click thread line to collapse

0 comments

koolba6y ago

I thought this was a joke as I haven’t used a recent Mac in a while but apparently it’s not. There really isn’t an escape key!

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT207358

Rebelgecko6y ago

It's extra fun when touchbaragent hangs and you can't force quit anything

luminiferous6y ago

Personally, I just remapped capslock to esc, since I never use capslock. The touchbar does seem to hang more often nowadays, though. Especially when I'm trying to adjust the volume.

Shish2k6y ago

I remapped capslock to escape, which simultaneously gives me back a useful key and gets rid of a useless one :P

garysahota936y ago

They are basically telling us "You can't escape our future"

eridius6y ago

Not a physical one, but the hit area on the TouchBar for Esc is actually larger than the physical key was. As much as people like to complain, in my experience the Esc key is extremely easy to hit.

Ididntdothis6y ago

And take the escape key off the TouchBar. I hit it all the time by accident. I really wanted to give the TouchBar a fair shake but after two months I still think it’s beyond useless.

neotek6y ago

I feel your pain, it's my number one problem with the Touch Bar, the second being that it's almost entirely useless in its default mode.

Hope that helps!

[1] https://folivora.ai

[2] https://community.folivora.ai/t/goldenchaos-btt-a-complete-t...

[3] https://stackoverflow.com/questions/127591/using-caps-lock-a...

Ididntdothis6y ago

Thanks for the tip. I got BTT and now I only have brightness and volume sliders on the Touch Bar and no escape. Much better. Will probably do some customization but it’s already a big improvement.

microtonal6y ago

And in the default configuration I often hit the Siri button when wanting to press Touch ID or (sometimes) backspace.

The TouchBar is nice on paper, actually adds to some applications, but the current implementation is a world of hurt.

SomeOldThrow6y ago

m-p-36y ago

At least that, and the idea of making the touchbar an actual tray is a great idea, would like this to be natively done and keep the screen as free as possible for the actual apps.

As long as it's optional, I could see people not liking this.

hanniabu6y ago

They removed the escape key? What the.....

I'm never going to retire my 2013 MBP at this rate.

eanzenberg6y ago

I have an esc key...?

ses19846y ago

It's very easy to remap caps lock to escape.

computerex6y ago

That's not the point. You shouldn't have to map caps lock to escape.

2 more replies

SomeOldThrow6y ago