GoldenChaos-BTT: The complete Touch Bar UI replacement

[GoldenChaos]

New experimental version!

I'm happy to report that the new settings window is, at last, fully functional! All segmented controls now update in real time to reflect their preferences. From here, there's just a lot of design and optimization work to be done for it to meet my standards for a stable release.

This version also fixes a bug with the AirPods widget where it wouldn't open the Bluetooth menu unless the Volume menu was also enabled.

GoldenChaos-BTT 2.720 (Experimental) Changelog

• [Settings Window] Segmented controls are now fully functional
  • This means that every switch in the settings menu is now fully functional! Hooooooly crap yes!
• [Settings Window] Added many more icons to switches
• [Settings Window] Enabled caching for the settings window
• [Settings] Performance and optimization improvements when reapplying all settings
• [Settings] Removed and deprecated "GC-BTT System Alerts" widget group
• [Default Settings] Made Apple Calendar the default calendar app instead of Fantastical
• [Dock Badges] Added Maps dock badge (great for handoff!)
• [Dock Badges] Added Superhuman dock badge
• [Connect to AirPods] Fixed an issue where the Bluetooth menu would not open if the Volume menu was missing
• [Connect to Beats] Fixed an issue where the Bluetooth menu would not open if the Volume menu was missing
• [Icons] New AirPods, Browser Tabs, and Emoji icons
  • I'm (finally) going through the current icon set and pixel-fitting them to the touch bar. A small start to something long overdue. Some graphics were updated previously, but soon every icon will be in the same 44x44 square instead of a variety of sizes, allowing you to reuse them more easily with the BTT default settings.

Notes for Testers

Please test all the settings in the settings menu and let me know if any don't work as expected.

Screenshots

_{You can see the new AirPods icon there. The emoji and browser tabs icons are also new, but more refinements than anything noticeable.}

Shots of the default settings:

Download: GoldenChaos-BTT 2.720 (Experimental)

[GoldenChaos]

New experimental version! With the initial settings implemented I can finally go and add many much-requested settings. I'm kicking it off today with some modifier menu toggle switches. You can finally disable the app switcher if you want!

GoldenChaos-BTT 2.723 (Experimental) Changelog

• [Settings] Added Modifier Menu settings to General tab
  • Modifiers keys for disabled menus can still be used to quickly shrink the menu bar! Very convenient.
• [Settings] Added placeholders for upcoming Home Strip settings
  • If the setting has a red background that means I haven't hooked it up yet and it won't do anything!
• [Settings] Fixed an issue with the New Tab and Refresh key setting switches
• [Modifier Menus] Fixed an issue where holding fn would cause all modifier menus to be displayed at once on top of each other
• [Modifier Menus] Fixed an issue where holding down multiple modifiers would hide the Home Strip

Known Issues

• The menu bar will briefly blink when modifier menus are invoked.
• The Volume Mute settings switch doesn't work in this build.

Screenshots

_{Holding down modifier keys with disabled menus allows them to quickly hide a portion of the menu bar. Convenient!}

Download: GoldenChaos-BTT 2.723 (Experimental)

[GoldenChaos]

New experimental version! All of the Home Strip settings work now please let me know in the feedback thread any additional settings you'd like, because this actually rounds out most settings I have planned for existing features. My remaining work on the settings window is pretty much just design-related, polishing up icons, making links work, etc.

GoldenChaos-BTT 2.273-2 (Experimental) Changelog

• [Home Strip Settings] New Home Strip settings activated
  • Set Media Controls & Now Playing widget to show always or hide completely
  • Show/Hide Calendar, Reminders, and Things widgets
  • Show Finder/AirDrop keys with icon only or hide completely
  • Show/Hide Window Snapping keys
• [Default Settings] Things widget is now disabled by default
• [Modifier Menus] Made modifier menus more reliable when inside widget groups

Known Issues

• The menu bar will briefly blink when modifier menus are invoked.
• The Volume Mute settings switch doesn't work in this build.

Screenshots

Download: GoldenChaos-BTT 2.723-2 (Experimental)

[GoldenChaos]

New experimental version! Bug fixes and polishing up icons.

GoldenChaos-BTT 2.723-3 (Experimental) Changelog

• [Settings Window] Fixed Volume Mute setting switch
• [Settings Window] Added an initialization function to set defaults if you've never set settings before
• [Icons] Most icons have now been pixel-fit to a 22x22pt bounding box

Notes for Testers

If the settings window was previously showing red rows for you, this update should resolve that issue and allow you to use the new switches. Please try the settings window on this version and let me know if all the switches work!

Known Issues

• The menu bar will briefly blink when modifier menus are invoked.

Download: GoldenChaos-BTT 2.723-3 (Experimental)

[GoldenChaos]

New experimental release! Got to spend today working on polishing the UX and icons

GoldenChaos-BTT 2.723-4 (Experimental) Changelog

• [Icons] More pixel-fitting, more standardization, ~90% of all UI icons done now
  • I haven't provided a before/after or anything, but some of these icons are waaaay sharper than before! Especially noticeable with the play/pause buttons, browser tabs, True Tone, and others that had weird soft edges. All fixed now.
• [Menu Bar] Added 1Password menu bar item
  • Before you get too excited, it's just mapped to cmd \, but I plan on exploring deeper 1Password support in the future!
• [Menu Bar] Tab buttons like Browser Tabs, Emoji Picker, and Languages now show their active/inactive states much more quickly and reliably
• [Browser Tabs] Fixed an issue where the Browser Tabs button would show up even if there were no tabs open

Known Issues

• The menu bar will briefly blink when modifier menus are invoked.

Screenshots

Download: GoldenChaos-BTT 2.723-4 (Experimental)

[GoldenChaos]

New experimental version! Adding more menu bar items for third party apps I use often. Let me know what apps you use in the menu bar that you'd like to see keys for! They're super easy to make since they often just trigger a keyboard shortcut.

Also, since I sometimes report when certain experimental versions are more stable than others, I'd peg this one as a "pretty stable" experimental release. We're close to release candidate status, just a few more things to add, so you could conceivably switch to the experimental channel as a daily driver until the next stable release and I wouldn't think you were that crazy.

GoldenChaos-BTT 2.723-5 (Experimental) Changelog

• [Menu Bar] Added Day One menu bar item
• [Menu Bar] Added ColorSnapper menu bar item

Known Issues

• The menu bar will briefly blink when modifier menus are invoked.

Screenshots

Download: GoldenChaos-BTT 2.723-5 (Experimental)

[GoldenChaos]

New experimental version! This one is back to being more experimental, and introduces some core changes to how media controls are displayed. The hope is that this improves responsiveness and media player compatibility. The reality is that there's still some work to be done, haha.

GoldenChaos-BTT 2.754 (Experimental) Changelog

• [Media Controls] Experimental new media controls using conditional activation groups
  • The Play/Pause button should be significantly more responsive now. Please test this out!
• [iTunes Controls] New Add to Library/Download button based on @mingwei's awesome new widget.
  • It also appears on the Home Strip!
  • I'm still refining the iCloud Download icon.
• [Menu Bar] Added HazeOver menu bar item
• [Emoji Picker] Added default set of favorite emoji based on top global emoji usage to make entering emoji faster
• [Window Snapper] Ported @yuuiko's updated community window snapper widget with initial multi-monitor support
  • Styles and functionality here are HEAVILY work in progress, please mind the dust!
• Widget formatting updates to make GC-BTT look nice in the experimental new BTT UI

Known Issues

• The menu bar will briefly blink when modifier menus are invoked.
• The Play/Pause button may not update properly inside the Now Playing Actions group.

Screenshots

Download: GoldenChaos-BTT 2.754 (Experimental)

[GoldenChaos]

New experimental version! This fixes a critical bug in the previous version that would cause iTunes to relaunch when quit. It also adds an updated UI for album art, and finalizes my media control refactor using conditional activation groups. This means that media controls should be more responsive than ever!

GoldenChaos-BTT 2.760 (Experimental) Changelog

• [Now Playing Widgets] New full-height album artwork display
• [Media Controls] Media controls now hide and show using conditional activation groups instead of AppleScript, making them much more responsive
• [iTunes Controls] Fixed a bug in the "Add to Library/Download Song" script that was causing iTunes to relaunch when quit
• [iTunes Controls] Refined "Download from iCloud" icon

Known Issues

• [BTT Issue] The menu bar will briefly blink when modifier menus are invoked.
• [BTT Issue] The Play/Pause button may not update properly inside the Now Playing Actions group.

Screenshots

Download: GoldenChaos-BTT 2.760 (Experimental)

[GoldenChaos]

New experimental version! Some bug fixes.

GoldenChaos-BTT 2.763 (Experimental) Changelog

• [Microphone Mute] Fixed microphone mute key not changing appearance when muted
• [Dock Badges] Improved Zeplin icon and fixed incorrect icon color

Known Issues

• [BTT Issue] The menu bar will briefly blink when modifier menus are invoked.
• [BTT Issue] The Play/Pause button may not update properly inside the Now Playing Actions group.

Download: GoldenChaos-BTT 2.763 (Experimental)

[GoldenChaos]

New experimental version! This one is a big boi update, with several long-awaited features and fixes for the settings window and dock.

If the updates in this version are successful, we've finally crossed the biggest hurdle preventing me from calling this release stable, and there are only small items left on my list after that.

GoldenChaos-BTT 2.814 (Experimental) Changelog

• [Settings Window] The settings window should now work properly even if you've never used GC-BTT before.
  • If you are encounter any red boxes in the settings window in this update, please post in the support thread and let me know.
  • If this works, this completes the first version of the settings window!
• [Dock Badges] Dock badges now get their value from a built-in BTT variable that uses MUCH less energy
  • Because of this energy improvement, all dock badge scripts are now enabled by default and can display their numbers even if the corresponding app isn't running.
  • If a badge for an app that is not running is present, tapping it will launch the app.
  • You can still disable individual dock badges in the settings window.
    • This may not be necessary, but I'm curious what energy gains there are to be had by turning some off. I haven't tested this myself, so please give it a shot and let me know if it matters. If it doesn't, I'll just leave them all on all the time and remove the settings panel for dock badges entirely.
• [Do Not Disturb Detection] GC-BTT now uses the new built-in BTT Do Not Disturb variable to detect this setting instead of manually checking the system.
  • It's faster and more reliable than the previous detection method.
• [Microphone Mute] Added GoToMeeting detection to the Microphone Mute key.
• [Open GC-BTT Settings Window Key] Fixed the settings gear being rendered black for some reason.
  • It's got a fresh new gear icon, too!

Known Issues

• [BTT Issue] The menu bar will briefly blink when modifier menus are invoked. (@Andreas_Hegenberg - any updates on fixing this?)
• [BTT Issue] The Play/Pause button may not update properly inside the Now Playing Actions group.

Screenshots

Download: GoldenChaos-BTT 2.814 (Experimental)

[GoldenChaos]

New experimental version!

GC-BTT now initializes the settings menu properly, guaranteed. No more red rows, no more settings not flipping, things should work now even if you've never installed GC-BTT before.

This new version uses a much more intelligent way of making sure that all of the GC-BTT settings variables are set before you are let into the settings window. This way also has redundancy in two stages, so even if the first stage fails it gets caught by the second stage and finishes the GC-BTT setup before the settings window finishes loading.

The first stage was added to the latest BTT alpha, 2.825, and lets you run a named trigger on import. This new trigger sets all the variables to their default settings if they're not already set, and then sets the variable "init_complete" to "complete".

If the first stage was not able to finish for whatever reason - for example, BTT restarting in the middle of the import - the second stage is a pretty foolproof fallback. A JS loop in the settings window itself checks the "init_complete" variable to see if the initialization from the import actually finished. If it didn't, it runs the initialization on-the-fly before it finishes loading the settings menu.

Both of these stages actually trigger the same script - it just gets two chances to finish running. The result is that all the switches in the settings menu should be finally flipped properly when you first install GC-BTT.

We're just a few more versions away from stable now, I'd say

GoldenChaos-BTT 2.825 (Experimental) Changelog

• [Settings] Improved initialization trigger with "init_complete" variable detection
• [Settings] Renamed initialization trigger so that works with the new BTT feature to run itself on preset import
• [Settings Window] Added "init_complete" check to settings window to prevent against import issues

Known Issues

• [BTT Issue] The menu bar will briefly blink when modifier menus are invoked.
• [BTT Issue] The Play/Pause button may not update properly inside the Now Playing Actions group.

Download: GoldenChaos-BTT 2.825 (Experimental)

[GoldenChaos]

New experimental version! Another big update. With the settings menu now (mostly) out of the way, I've been able to focus on highly requested features and polish.

GoldenChaos-BTT 2.850 (Experimental) Changelog

• [Menu Bar] New Battery widget with optional percentage display
  • You can long-press on it to view the in-progress system information modal, but it's still a ways from being done and only shows battery information at the moment.
• [Menu Bar] New Connect to Bose widget
• [Things] You can now long-press on the Things widget to see your next ten tasks
  • I don't use Things, so I can't test this one. Could anyone using Things confirm that this feature works properly?
• [Dock Badges] Reverted default dock badge settings to Apple apps only
  • The new dock badges use almost no energy, but there are still performance benefits to disabling unused badges!
• [Settings Window] Made it more obvious how to upgrade with a new "Upgrading" section label and improved button text
• [Settings Window] Better logical grouping and annotations for settings in the Menu Bar tab
• [Settings Window] Links in the About tab actually work now
• [BetterTouchTool Preferences] Added some basic upgrading instructions inside the BTT Preferences window under the GC-BTT keyboard shortcuts
• [Initialization] Added GC-BTT version number variable and version number check to initialization script to ensure that it re-initializes new variables after upgrading

Known Issues

• The Battery and Bose menu bar items fail to update properly when restoring settings.

• [BetterTouchTool Issue] The Now Playing widget stays visible even if no players are open.
• [BetterTouchTool Issue] The Play/Pause button does not update its appearance inside of widget groups.
• [BetterTouchTool Issue] The menu bar will briefly blink when modifier menus are invoked.

Screenshots

^{New battery and Bose menu bar widgets.}

^{Optional battery percentage display.}

Download: GoldenChaos-BTT 2.850 (Experimental)

[GoldenChaos]

New experimental version! I swear these are actually close to stable. To prove it, I am listing my remaining roadmap to the next stable release!

You can absolutely use this version as a daily driver, it's just not something I'd recommend using for six months straight without an upgrade.

GoldenChaos-BTT 3.061 (Experimental) Changelog

• Full compatibility with macOS 10.15 Catalina
  • Truth be told, the only thing that needed to be added was support for the new Music app! And it was as easy as copying the iTunes scripts and changing "iTunes" to "Music". Behold, full Catalina compatibility!
• [Dock Badges] New dock badges for:
  • Apple Calendar
  • Reminders
  • Fantastical
  • Things
  • WeChat
  • QQ
  • Maipo (Weibo client)

Roadmap to Stable

• Updated handoff support for badges based on @yuuiko's provided code
• The "last" round of new app badges (lol)
  • Carrot
  • Deliveries
  • OmniFocus
• Finish system information group
  • Polish up battery widget displays
  • CPU usage widget
  • CPU temperature widget
  • Memory usage widget
  • Storage information (multi-volume maybe?)
• Completely disable modifier menus (without side effects)
  • This one is the big boi that I've been putting off. Until I do this, disabling modifier menus just doesn't behave how I want it to.
• Add the ability to name your AirPods/Beats/Bose inside GC-BTT settings
  • Okay, this one is also another big boi.
• OmniFocus support with OmniFocus tasks widget group
• Picture in Picture button
• Finish window snapper multi-monitor support
• Window snapper style tuneups
• Split Safari and Chrome browser tab widgets
• Add True Tone button state toggle color
• Add Night Shift button state toggle color

Screenshots

Download: GoldenChaos-BTT 3.061 (Experimental)

[GoldenChaos]

New experimental version! Emergency bug fix for the new Apple Calendar and Reminders badges.

GoldenChaos-BTT 3.063 (Experimental) Changelog

• [Settings] Fixed Apple Calendar and Reminders setting switches being accidentally set to switch the wrong things

New Mirrors

Since a few folks reported about the sharing site downtime yesterday, I've decided to upload mirrors of the current stable and experimental versions to GitHub. The sharing site will still always be the canonical way to get the preset, but I just wanted to provide a mirror in case the sharing site ever does experience issues.

Download: GoldenChaos-BTT 3.063 (Experimental)

Download link not working? Try the GitHub mirror.

[GoldenChaos]

New experimental version! More bug fixes, plus a brand new Dock widget to replace the App Switcher widget!

GoldenChaos-BTT 3.065 (Experimental) Changelog

• [App Switcher] App Switcher is now Dock, it always reflects your current dock and can launch apps!
• [Things] Fixed Things widgets not calling the correct app name
• [Fantastical] Improved reliability when launching or activating Fantastical from Fantastical widgets

Screenshots

Download: GoldenChaos-BTT 3.065 (Experimental)

Download link not working? Try the GitHub mirror.

[GoldenChaos]

New experimental version! This adds improved handoff support to dock badges.

GoldenChaos-BTT 3.065-2 (Experimental) Changelog

• [Dock Badges] Updated badges with @yuuiko's new badge code
  • Improved handoff detection using BTT's dock variables
  • Number badges only appear if the app is running
  • Handoff badges can still appear when the app is closed
  • If a number badge and handoff badge are present at the same time, the number badge will take priority.
    • Would people prefer that Handoff take priority? If you have feelings about this please post in the support thread

Roadmap to Stable

• The "last" round of new app badges
  • Carrot
  • Deliveries
  • OmniFocus
• Finish system information group
  • Polish up battery widget displays
  • CPU usage widget
  • CPU temperature widget
  • Memory usage widget
  • Storage information (multi-volume maybe?)
• Completely disable modifier menus (without side effects)
• Add the ability to name your AirPods/Beats/Bose inside GC-BTT settings
• OmniFocus support with OmniFocus tasks widget group
• Picture in Picture button
• Finish window snapper multi-monitor support
• Window snapper style tuneups
• Split Safari and Chrome browser tab widgets
• Add True Tone button state toggle color
• Add Night Shift button state toggle color
• Fix for play/pause button not changing states in Now Playing Actions group

Download: GoldenChaos-BTT 3.065-2 (Experimental)

Download link not working? Try the GitHub mirror.

[GoldenChaos]

New experimental version! Things should finally work now. I tested it with an actual copy of Things! (Whaaaaaaaat?!)

I've also made some changes to how often various scripts run. All scripts that previous ran every second will now run every two seconds. Hopefully this results in a noticeable drop in energy usage without a hit to perceived performance. This preset's energy usage is still unwieldily and I'd like to get it to a state where it isn't nuking your battery life, but there's definitely only so much I can limit the scripts before they completely lose their utility. This is definitely an ongoing investigation so please report energy consumption stats in the support thread

GoldenChaos-BTT 3.065-3 (Experimental) Changelog

• [Energy Consumption] All scripts previously set to run every 1s now run every 2s
• [Menu Bar] Switched from scripts to conditional activation groups for the following keys:
  • Browser Tabs
  • Emoji Picker
  • Current Language
  • Dock
  • This results in a noticeably snappier transition when opening these groups, and uses less energy.
• [Things] Things dock badge and widgets should actually work now

Download: GoldenChaos-BTT 3.065-3 (Experimental)

Download link not working? Try the GitHub mirror.

[GoldenChaos]

New experimental version! Critical bug fixes for the previous version.

GoldenChaos-BTT 3.065-4 (Experimental) Changelog

• [Things] Fixed remaining Things widget and badge issues (hopefully)
• [Menu Bar] Fixed a critical configuration issue with the new conditional activation group implementation that would cause unwanted menu bar items to appear in certain widget groups

Download: GoldenChaos-BTT 3.065-4 (Experimental)

Download link not working? Try the GitHub mirror.

[GoldenChaos]

New experimental version! Weather widget icon fix + new native calendar widget integration!

GoldenChaos-BTT 3.167 (Experimental) Changelog:

• [Calendar] Replaced built-in calendar support with BetterTouchTool's new native calendar widgets
  • iCalBuddy is still required for reminders until the next GC-BTT version
• [Weather] Fixed the day and night icons for Partly Cloudy being swapped in the menu bar
• [Dock Badges] New dock badges for:
  • Carrot Weather
  • OmniFocus
  • Deliveries

Known Issues

• The home strip calendar widget will take up empty space if there are no events.
• The text on the calendar widget is too small.

Roadmap to Stable

To get to the next stable version faster, I've cut a few smaller features. I'll revisit them as soon as the new stable version is out.

Once this stable version is released I'm going to rethink how I brand these releases, since the experimental channel ended up becoming more stable than the stable version.

• Integrate upcoming native Reminders widget
  • Finally removing the iCalBuddy dependency
• Finish system information group
  • Polish up battery widget displays
  • CPU usage widget
  • CPU temperature widget
  • Memory usage widget
  • Storage information (multi-volume maybe?)
• Completely disable modifier menus (without side effects)
• Finish window snapper multi-monitor support
• Window snapper style tuneups
• Add True Tone button state toggle color
• Add Night Shift button state toggle color

Screenshots

Download: GoldenChaos-BTT 3.167 (Experimental)

Download link not working? Try the GitHub mirror.

[GoldenChaos]

New experimental version! This one includes critical bug fixes for the previous version. Thank you to everyone who reported these issues!

Make sure you update BTT to 3.172 before installing this GC release!

GoldenChaos-BTT 3.172 (Experimental) Changelog

• [Imports and Upgrades] Fixed various issues with the initialization and upgrade path
  • Fixed various issues causing the initialization/upgrade script to fail to run
  • Fixed dock badge variables not being set correctly
  • Fixed battery widget variables not being set correctly
  • Tested fresh import via direct import from web and download
  • Tested upgrade path via direct import from web and download
• [Settings] Fixed the settings window being accidentally removed in the previous version
• [Settings] Removed the icalBuddy link from the Calendar settings
• [Calendar] Fixed calendar widgets losing their configuration settings on import
  • This was causing events to not show up in the home strip.
  • Props to @Andreas_Hegenberg for the timely BTT fixes in 3.172
• [Calendar] Fixed calendar widget font size
• [Menu Bar] Added Calculator menu bar widget
  • Launches the Calculator app!

Notes

I think this experimental release is particularly stable, especially with the import and upgrade improvements, so I've asked @Andreas_Hegenberg to verify it! A rare occurrence for an experimental version

Screenshots

Download: GoldenChaos-BTT 3.172 (Experimental)

Download link not working? Try the GitHub mirror.