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Comment by tsmarsh | Hacker News Reader

No touch bar is a win IMHO. I'm not against it per se, but a soft `esc` was a mistake.

I get that people don't like that. I do, however, have no problems with it, coming from a developer perspective. It's in the same position, but without the tactile feedback. You'll get only visual feedback in the app you're running.

I love the touchbar, mainly because you can customise it any way you want. I have a lot of macros and shortcuts put on there for while I'm programming. Of course, I did that with the F1-F12 keys before, but now it's just more intuitive for me and aesthetically pleasing.

I would like to hear your thoughts on why a tactile device, the keyboard, is better when tactile feedback is replaced with visual clues. And why a device you touch and don't look at is more aesthetically pleasing when you remove the bits that the way you use it more pleasant.

For my money the innovation we're missing is more tactile feedback. A device that allows you to modify the click of a key, the amount of force required, the position and shape of those keys.

Have you tried remapping esc to capslock? (Or ctrl to capslock and esc to ctrl). I would never go back to normal esc.

For my part: I've thought about it, but I have huge hands. Sometimes, when I'm reaching for Shift or Tab, I hit Caps Lock on accident. I would be frustrated if I hit Caps Lock on accident and it broke me out of insert mode.

I can understand how it can be more ergonomic and usable for some people, though.

The irony is that I do have capslock mapped to escape, but my fingers frequently rest where the esc key should be, so I catch it when I wasn't expecting it.

Sure, this is my problem, its just only my problem on MacBook Pros.

> Have you tried remapping esc to capslock? (Or ctrl to capslock and esc to ctrl)

¿Why not both?

I have (on Linux, not on Mac, but it shouldn't matter):

* "caps lock" + key = Ctrl+key

* "caps lock" (release) = Esc

It works like charm and I can definitely recommend it.

How do you map it to do that?

Karabiner - https://pqrs.org/osx/karabiner/

I have mine mapped to:

* caps (no other key) => esc * caps + home row => corresponding symbol key

Extremely nice for programming when '(' and ')' are on 'L' and ';' keys - directly under my fingers.

You can use https://github.com/alols/xcape on linux.

I guess there are other ways and tools, I use this:

1. to put Ctrl on CapsLock:

    setxkbmap -option caps:ctrl_modifier

2. to have "dual" CL as described above:

    xcape -e 'Caps_Lock=Escape'

So simple, I wish I had thought about it before. Thanks.

There should be a fingerprint sensor, though. Pairing that with the touchbar that nobody wanted in the MacBook Pros was a bad idea.

vim lifer here, I'm dreading the day my 2015 rMBP dies.

You should probably stop using the tiny escape key long before that happens. Either swap out caps for esc (my pref), start using ^[ or do one of these tricks: https://vim.fandom.com/wiki/Avoid_the_escape_key

I don't know if you've tried this, but consider using caps lock for ctrl (the other tiny harder to reach key) and jk for esc. The home row reachability of jk is actually really nice and having ctrl remapped seals the deal for me.

Vim user as well. My 2014 rMBP died in 2017 and I've had the 13" MBP w/ touch bar ever since. I'm utterly disappointed with the machine. I don't like anything about the touch bar, it's literally completely useless to me, however, the escape key doesn't drive me insane. I work about half of my day using my laptop keyboard and the other half docked w/ a mechanical keyboard.

I've tried mapping esc to the backtick (`) key and tried 60% keyboards - I can't get used to it.

Depending on what you do you could look into the MacBook Air?

I considered that a month ago for doing some graphic stuff which doesn't run on Linux (on my XPS 13 main machine). But the Air w/ 16 GB is a bad deal compared to the MB Pro, and the low-end MB Pro (the only one without the freaking Touch Bar) has a worse display and specs than the high-end so I didn't buy anything. I'm wondering why Apple can not just get over the idea of coupling "Pro" machines with the Touch Bar. As a touch typist and vi hard-core user, I'm never going to buy a Touch Bar device, period.

There are decent non-Apple laptops now, like the Dell XPS 13. Unless of course you need to use Mac OS.

I purchased a new laptop this year to replace my 2014 MBA and decided to go with the Razer blade. I like it a lot, and am glad I didn't go with a current MBP or MBA

I did dread that too but then I received a brand new 13" MBP and ESC on Touch Bar has never been an issue. I did remap it caps lock out of fear but turns out I never used it, relying solely on ESC on the Touch Bar. At first I set the Touch Bar to default to the expanded control strip but two weeks in I switched back to the default Touch Bar setting. F1-F12 are a non-issue for me as I never use them (except possibly in htop, and rarely so), relying on <Leader> sequences in vim for the longest time.

Also, regarding the keyboard it was weird at first, not the least because I moved from a French to a US layout but also because of the hardware. Now that I'm used to the key response it's muscle memory to hit the keys with the right amount of force and it's a very enjoyable keyboard with a seemingly impossible touch-type feeling.

I can see how that could be "not someone's thing" (like cherry blue switches vs brown vs whatever) but that's very personal and the general hatred against the keyboard and Touch Bar is pretty much overblown.

Ctrl+c is same as esc in vim.

Was in the same boat... except my 2014 rMBP did die and I had to replace it with a 2018 model.

I also dreaded the soft-escape, but that turned out to be the least of my problems. Remapping caps lock to escape wasn't hard to get used to at all (even after 30+ years of vi use). Within a couple days that felt fine. Seemed like an OK trade for getting touch-ID unlocking.

What is absolutely not ok is this keyboard. It's the third generation "membrane" version that supposedly is better, but it's near unusable for any real work. So many keystrokes double register that my overall typing speed is probably but in half. I'm just having to backspace over the keyboard's mistakes so much! (Twice in that last sentence, for example)

And even if I put up with the keyboard somehow, I can look forward to the screen probably dying in a year or two anyway: https://venturebeat.com/2019/01/22/apples-latest-macbook-pro...

I've become so used to Apple being the premium laptop brand -- yes I had to pay a bit more for a given machine spec but the overall build quality was top notch. Now they're still premium priced but are delivering the worst laptop hardware in the industry. After being sucked into the Apple ecosystem for so long I'm being forced to switch back to linux simply because they no longer sell a minimally functional laptop at any price.

So please treat that rMBP well -- you'll definitely miss it when its gone. I wouldn't be surprised if Apple never makes a laptop as good as that one again.

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