sorry but let me try rephrase that to my understanding. I just want to make sure this concept works logically
To get a trigger to show on all groups with some excepted groups, you do:
Put it in the CA group with the new rules
Enable the “apply CA group rules” (basically, right?) in the trigger
The trigger will then be aware of the CA group rules and show itself within groups.
Other triggers that don’t have this checked will behave as of now - not showing in any trigger groups
No not exactly.
There will be two new things that are separate from each other and can also be used separately:
1.) A new condition in CA groups that looks at the active group name
2.) A new option in the Touch Bar trigger configuration that will allow triggers be merged into the active group, even if they are not part of that group
Feature #1. could also be used for other things, for example maybe you only want certain keyboard shortcuts to work while a specific Touch Bar group is open.
Feature #2. could also be used separately from activation groups, e.g. if you have configured a Touch Bar for a specific app and have a certain button that you want to show inside and outside of every group.
So the triggers will not be aware of the CA group settings at all but if a CA group is activated, and thereby the triggers it contains are loaded, it will show them in the active group - if they have that new setting from #2 enabled.
Ah okay, You seem to know what you’re doing.
The main thing I was trying to ask (sorry if it took a long time to get to this)
How will the triggers that are in CAgroups respond to open trigger groups if there are no trigger group settings applied?
Currently, CAgroups don’t merge into open groups. If this stays, then the exclusions won’t work as right now they don’t merge into any groups anyways. if it stays this way, you would need to add every singe group name that you have as an if true.
If you instead defaulted CAgroups to merge into all groups as long as their rules are met, how would it behave?
If you had this behaviour implemented, how would a group with no group rules behave? would it just add it to any and all open groups as long as its other ‘traditional’ rules are met?
You open a touch bar group, then the activation conditions for all activation groups will be evaluated. If they result in "true", it will load the triggers in the true activation groups.
However this doesn't mean they are shown while a touch bar group is active because by default they don't get merged, at first they are just loaded and might be hidden while a touch bar group is open.
Only if the merge option has been activated for the specific touch bar triggers in that activation group, they will be shown while a touch bar group is open.
Something like this:
With that explanation I’m understanding it a bit more, but not absolutley, however I do feel that you’ve thought through and got my issue covered though, so I guess I’ll wait untill it’s implemented to give feedback. (like I’ll get it when it comes out)
All my concerns, questions, logic challenges are now smoothed out, sorry if I was a bother 
just wanted to help evaluate with you. I’ve gotta thank you for your time! You’ve added so much features to make AQT work better and I’m sure other advanced users would like this change too. Looking forward to the new feature! (don’t mind if you focus on the new UI first though)
You can try this now in v2.668 alpha (to create sub condition in the conditional activation group editor, press option while clicking the + buttons)
Thanks so much! Will definitley use a heap.
@GoldenChaos @GoldenChaos @GoldenChaos @GoldenChaos @GoldenChaos
You have served me well. Farewell, my clipboard group
Edit:
It's adding to groups well, but exclusions seem to be a bit buggy. I still need to adapt the preset to the change and it may be some logic errors on my side, but I'll get back if I find anything.
I'm confused, is this the "reuse widget" functionality I've been asking for for a long time?
It doesn't seem to be, since I don't always want the menu bar to appear in every open group. Am I missing something? The modal widget groups still need to remain fullscreen. And what about modifier menus etc?
Sorry if I'm being dense x_x
Yes, it allows one widget to appear within all groups / groups of choice.
If you use Conditional Activation groups to hold your persistent widgets, you can exclude them from specific groups.
I'm just merging this change into my AQT Control Strip and it's working great so far.
I think you'd still need seperate ones for the modifiers, but they don't need to be within every group anymore
Add your persistent triggers to a new conditional activation group
for each persistent trigger, check the new option "Also show in any Touch Bar group that is opened" in trig/widget settings
Edit the conditional activation group as below to exclude them from appearing in certain groups:
Sweet. I'll give this a shot!
It would still be nice to have a more generic "reuse Touch Bar item with UUID", though. This seems like a roundabout way of achieving the same thing. @Andreas_Hegenberg
With that method wouldn't you still need to add the resused widget to every single group?
In my case I have a HEAP of groups, which all need the control strip. it's a mega pain to paste the persistent widgets into them all. This one is kind of an auto-insert method
You would, but it wouldn't matter since they'd just be aliases for the original widget. So there wouldn't be reused code or an additional performance hit, and it would work for things like modifier menus.
Actually, what about Right Click -> "Create Alias" as a way to do it in the UI? 
I will say I've avoided CAGs because they are so intimidating. But I'll persevere!!
my main problem, and the main cause of this solution is to reduce the copy/pasting into folders.
Here's the workings of my preset, I'd need to do that for every single group to get the same 'persistent widget' feel.
Play the video in safari.
aha i missed one of the old persistent widgets at the end there, deleted it in favour of the new system as i'm doing throughout the preset right now
I think I just need to try refactoring and see where this system excels and where it falls short. It'll be good practice anyway since I don't think I"ll be able to add deep 3rd party app key sets without using conditional activation groups.
@Andreas_Hegenberg, (@GoldenChaos)
Just finished implementation of the new feature for AQT b3.3.2.
Working as expected!
One bug though, Sometimes it's seen to flicker off with my triggers hiding themselves now and then. Switching app groups and coming back to the previous app seems to fix it relatively occasionally. It's very usable but sometimes an annoyance as it disappears once in a while.
Here's the preset as of now
AquaTouch-b3.3.2_dev20dec2018.bttpreset (23.0 MB)
@yuuiko I'll look into that! As always, if you see a pattern for this issue # please let me know.
@GoldenChaos aliases will still be useful, but with conditional activation groups you can do many things much faster.
Also unfortunately aliases are more complicated than I anticipated, which is why they haven't been added yet 
Also another bug, sometimes clicking a (i'll call them a persistent trigger, a trigger that has a 'show in groups' on) that opens up another group, it has trouble opening up.
It opens the group, but then it hides the BTT TouchBar.
When opening it up again, it shows the group open. but as soon as i close this group, the triggers disappear and it's nearby elements get weirdly misplaced. It doesn't fix itself.
When I close the messed up set, and then open the bar again, it opens up orderly again but without the persistent triggers. A few moments later they appear automatically.
Seen especially in my AQT safari sets.
download the problem preset in my previous reply
The video only seems to work in safari? try that if you're on chrome.
thanks, I'm away until Saturday, then I'll look into that!
@yuuiko can you maybe create a very simple preset that can reproduce this? I'm having a hard time following the steps and see what settings in the preset might have a influence 
And one more question:
Shouldn't the new "Show App Default Touch Bar, Hide Control Strip in case BTT Bar is activated" option be check for pretty much everything in your preset?
