[eridius]

> Strongly disagree, and I can not conceive of how it could be viewed as "better" than hardware keys.

I hope this is hyperbole, because it shouldn't be hard to understand. The TouchBar is absolutely an improvement. I can't remember the last time I actually used a laptop keyboard's F-keys for anything, but the TouchBar makes that space useful.

[vthriller]

> I can't remember the last time I actually used a laptop keyboard's F-keys for anything

Not even F5 in a web browser?

[eridius]

That's Windows. F5 doesn't do anything in Mac browsers.

[Grimm665]

What? Fn+F5 works fine in chrome.

[eridius]

Funny, I actually tested Chrome before commenting just to make sure it wasn't doing something weird, and F5 definitely doesn't reload Chrome on my computer.

[dawnerd]

so does cmd + r which is easier to hit I suppose

[DoodleBuggy]

You never use the ESCAPE key? Apple roped that into the fn keys and removed it

[eridius]

My touch bar computer still has an Esc key. It's part of the touchscreen now instead of a physical button, but it still works the same way and I've never had any problem hitting it without looking.

[zeveb]

> I can't remember the last time I actually used a laptop keyboard's F-keys for anything

I use them regularly to switch consoles. MacOS supports multiple consoles, right?

[eridius]

By consoles do you mean terminals? Terminal.app uses ⌘⌥1–9 to switch windows and ⌘1–9 to switch tabs. The F-keys aren't used by Terminal.app at all (well, they're sent to the terminal as an escape sequence).

[zeveb]

No, I mean complete GUI heads: completely separate GUI login sessions which use the same screen and can be switched between. Also called 'virtual framebuffers,' I think.

Very awesome. I'm sure that Macs support something similar.

[eridius]

macOS has something called Fast User Switching, which is completely separate login sessions, but you access it through a menu on the right side of the menubar, not with keys.

macOS also has Spaces, which is just virtual desktops, but again, it doesn't use the F-keys to switch between them.

[quesera]

I'm strongly reading GP comments as trolling, given indirect context, but I respect your approach of taking the high road by assuming simple ignorance.

[zeveb]

I really wasn't trolling. I've not used macOS for almost twenty years now, so I genuinely didn't know if it supported multiple graphics consoles. I'm not surprised that it does, but I wouldn't have been terribly surprised if it didn't, either.

My (un-trolling) point still stands, though: I use the Function keys on a daily basis, to switch between consoles.