Developers using Macbooks, have you made the Touch Bar useful?

I recently upgraded to a newer Macbook, one with a Touch Bar. So far, I haven't found its defaults useful for me in most apps I use for work. I've re-mapped esc to my Caps Lock key, but otherwise haven't done anything.

Any way to make this weird thing useful for programming?

Comments

[Elizabeth Schafer]

Nope, I'm almost 3 years into it and have been waiting this whole time for a new macbook pro without a touch bar. And I see now that doesn't exist anymore. 😭

[Tyler V. (he/him)]

I don't have a Touch bar, but this is my favorite use I've seen for it -

mjaniszew / osx-touchbar-party-parrot

Use Electron to display Party Parrots on MacBooks Pro Touch Bar

osx-touchbar-party-parrot

It displays Party Parrots on MacBook's Pro Touch Bar using Electron. Because we need Party Parrots everywhere!

npm install to install all dependencies

npm start to run Party Parrots on MacBook's Pro fancy Touch Bar and serve its true purpose

npm test to test parrots

Also worth of checking out:

• cultofthepartyparrot.com
• osx-touchbar-parrots-on-steroids

View on GitHub

[Xiao Ling]

No. But the next-gen MBP 16 with M1 is possibly coming this year.

[Carlos Trapet]

Yeah, a fair bit, mostly for browser stuff like navigating, or when changing tabs in VSCode.

The touch-bar is definitely not worth a grand though.