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Comment by leejoramo | Hacker News Reader

I live in terminal about a third of my day. I seldom use the function keys for anything other than adjusting the volume and brightness. I can't remember the last time I needed to use a pure Function key in any app.

I am a keyboard junky. I have long used LaunchBar (since OS X Beta), Keyboard Maestro and other utilities to do almost everything on my computer and while keeping my hands on the home keys. And I mapped the CAPS LOCK to ESC many years ago.

For me the current Function Keys are mostly wasted space. I am not sure how useful the Touch Bar will be for me, but I feel it will be more useful than the current setup.

(corrected: keeping hands "on" home)

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You don't remap the function keys to do stuff? I use F1 and F2 to switch between tabs in tmux for example. In the past I have also have mapped the function keys on the right side to run common scripts, like deploying an app staging/production.

I guess that it comes down to I have never liked the function keys because they pull my hands off of the home keys, and I never could accurately hit the F keys without looking for them.

Long ago, when I was using apps that made heavy use of the function keys, I mapped ctrl-alt plus a number for to the function keys. I use to love the Happy Hacker Keyboards for have this built in.

Do you never enter apps like htop? Even without function keys for filter and search you at least would need an esc key to quit.

I have esc remapped to capslock on my laptop, but how easy is it to remap keys in OSX?

You got me there. htop is probably the one terminal app that I regularly use that has important FN keys. Still I bet only one out of 5 times do I actually use the FN keys in htop. I suspect that of the amount that I use them, Apple's access to old function keys via the Touch Bar will be fine for me.

(And I can always pull out my Happy Hacker Keyboard)

Its very easy to remap keys in OSX. Its in the Keyboard Settings.

so the understanding here is that everyone is just going to remap esc?

Up until macOS 10.12, it was difficult to remap the ESC to CAP LOCK. Now it is an option in the keyboard settings.

My biggest complaint is since macOS Sierra, it is now so hard to create a Hyper-key.

http://brettterpstra.com/2016/09/29/a-better-hyper-key-hack-...

Esc quits htop on Mac OS? That's really odd. I've gotten used to Ctrl+C on Linux.

ctrl-c sends a SIGINT to the terminal, it's not a quit command. F10 is the original quit for htop along with F6 being sort, F3 being search, and so on

I understand, but it still has the effect of quitting.

workarounds exist sure, they aren't replacements for that app's workflow

q for quit in htop on ubuntu

Thanks for directing me to LaunchBar and Keyboard Maestro. I'm a touch typist, so for me the new touch bar is a no go. Regarding function keys, they are configurable. I'm a programmer: debugging using function keys is been part of my coding live since I can remember. I guess this MBP is not for me. Regarding the waste of space, I don't see that: there's plenty of space. The screen size mandates the amount of space available in the base of the laptop.

I understand Apple's rationale: touch bar = dynamic function keys but, why not keep the physical function and esc keys and add the touch bar on top of that?

As others have mentioned. I just remapped my function keys for common tasks or launching applications (e.g. f1 = Xcode, f2 = Slack, f3 = Terminal). Using something like Keyboard Maestro (which you use), you can also contextualize the functionality based on certain applications.

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