New mapbook pro, Mojave 10.14.3. Installed trial version of BTT.
Unchecked touchbar options to show MacOS control strip, and show ESC key.
That makes no change to my Touchbar.
Added keyboard shortcuts to map to Esc, and Fn- to ` and those works fine.
Did you add any config the BTT Touch Bar setup?
Make sure "Shows App Controls" is selected in System Preferences => Keyboard
Yes, that's my configuration. If I hide the MacOS control strip and define my own custom button, that works. But my main aim right now is to disable the Esc button, and remap it to a keyboard key. And that doesn't work.
Here you see my config. The Esc button is still shown on the touchbar.
Thanks.
I'm not sure whether I understand.
If you can add a button in BTT you can just assign any action and use it as your esc replacement.
You need to hide the macOS control strip though if you want to get rid of the left x button.
Sorry if I wasn't clear. I am trying to remove the ESC button from the Touch Bar.
As you see above, I check "Show macOS Control Strip"
and I UNcheck "Show ESC Button on the left side of the Touch Bar".
But with this configuration, the ESC button is STILL showing on the Touch Bar.
It that how it is supposed to work?
It should not show the ESC key then (as soon as you leave the BTT window), but it will still show the system X button (if you have at least one button configured in BTT)
The only way to completely replace this is by hiding the macOS Control Strip.
Do you have any button configured in BTT? Is your BTT Touch Bar maybe hidden? (unhide by pressing the BTT icon in the control strip or by using the predefined action "Toggle BetterTouchTool Touch Bar).
I don't think there is a bug, otherwise I'd have received tons of reports during the last weeks 
I guess I am misunderstanding how this works.
What I want to do is to remove the "esc" button from the touchbar, without changing anything else about how the touchbar functions. Is that possible?
BTT only works if at least one button is configured.
You could configure one button, assign no action and make it completely black.
However you'd still need to hide the macOS Control Strip, otherwise the system forces a little X on the left side which is even worse than the ESC button 
So I guess the answer is, I can't do what I am asking for, which is to basically keep the MacOS control strip, but with the esc key removed.
I'm quite OK with how the MacOS strip works, I just want to get rid of the esc button!
Jup, there is no way to achieve that, the APIs don't allow it ;-( (But you can create a pretty good custom control strip, have a look at some of the presets here)
Can you send a link? I didn't find presets that seemed designed for this general purpose.
