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by jobigoud 3524 days ago
I realize I don't know the first thing about MacBook keyboards. Are you saying they don't have Page up, Page down, Home and End?

Maybe a Windows thing but I use Function keys everyday, F3 for incremental search, F5, F9, F10, F11 for debugging. Not having these keys would be handicapping.
3 comments
gurkendoktor 3524 days ago
Home/end are not really necessary on a Mac, where you can use cmd+arrow keys instead (left=start of line, right=end of line, up=start of document, down=end of document).

The function keys are also not commonly used by apps because the system maps them to brightness control, volume, play/pause etc. by default and you need to use the Fn key to produce the actual function key keystrokes.

The convention for incremental search is: cmd+F to open the find dialog, cmd+G for "Find Next" (which is great because it's right next to cmd+F), and cmd+E cmd+G for "search for selection". Every macOS app works that way and the F3 key will not be missed.

It's really not that bad. The only key I miss on Mac keyboards is forward delete (Del).

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dump121 3524 days ago
You can change Fn keys behaviour from prefs and I believed all developers would have defaulted to Function keys but seems not so.

Chrome, IntelliJ, VSC all use Fn keys for debugging, and also at least I have mapped most of function keys to some tasks, like F5 for open symbol etc.

Touchbar is only good for some slider like things where continuous strip will help. It is also good for novice users like MSOffice ribbon, they can see a lot of things on screen now and they don't have to hunt in menu or remember shortcuts.

But for a real pro user spending whole day in few softwares, it makes no sense. I have seen pro photoshop users using 3-4 keys long shortcut like second nature, they need access to tonnes of features and variants so more keys the merrier.

Honestly, I haven't seen any real use cases of the touchbar, smileys and photo slider is cute but not something on top of my list to optimise.

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scentoni 3523 days ago
fn+Backspace = forward delete
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mikejmoffitt 3524 days ago
I also make good use of the F-keys, as well as the pgup/pgdn/home/end/del block. I use both Linux and Windows.
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redler 3524 days ago
With the touch bar, you could now have buttons (virtual, of course) with those labels and functions.
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