TouchBar Custom Item Icons Become Blurry After Edit

Nauci · August 30, 2018, 2:41am

The icons I add to TouchBar appear very blurry compared to default or app generated icons.

If I restart the computer, the icons reset to normal resolution, but as soon as I make any edits to one's appearance, they all become blurry again until I restart the computer again. Restarting BTT itself doesn't have any effect. Deleting BTT cache doesn't either.

Default - https://www.dropbox.com/s/hwaozqfv8mek85h/Screenshot%202018-08-29%2016.34.52.png?dl=0
BTT - https://www.dropbox.com/s/slpdje0spqt2q0x/Screenshot%202018-08-29%2016.33.53.png?dl=0

Affecting Touchbar 2018 15" Macbook Pro on High Sierra 10.13.6 with BTT 2.618

Note: Before bug reporting, please make sure you have the latest version of BetterTouchTool and that you have already tried to restart your system :-). If you encounter a crash, please attach a crash log from the macOS Console.app from the "User Diagnostic Reports" section.

Mauricevanree · September 11, 2018, 1:18pm

Encountering the same problem here.
It didn't happen after an edit for me, but after an update of BTT. Unfortunately I do not know since what version anymore...
Currently running BTT 2.636(945), also on a 15" Macbook Pro 2018 with High Sierra 10.13.6.

Restarting my machine or BTT does not fix it for me.

Andreas_Hegenberg · September 11, 2018, 1:30pm

are you using tools to set custom screen resolutions on your Mac?
If so, unfortunately they currently can not be supported within BTT and can cause such issues

Mauricevanree · September 11, 2018, 1:53pm

Hi Andreas,

Yes I am, I use RDM to set the resolution to 2880x1800.
Any reason why it would work before a recent update of BTT?

Andreas_Hegenberg · September 11, 2018, 2:11pm

I needed to switch to a different method for creating Touchbar buttons, unfortunately the standard macOS drawing APIs seem to get confused when setting the resolution like this...

I don't currently know how to get around that

Mauricevanree · September 11, 2018, 2:48pm

That explains.
I hope you'll be able to find a way around it eventually. The buttons are still usable, but of course it doesn't look the way I'd like.

Thanks for the quick response(s) BTW!

Nauci · September 13, 2018, 4:29am

Thank you for the response and update! Yes, I'm using EasyRes to set mine to 2880x1800 as well. Whenever something requires re-rendering (like when my spotify widget changes size for different song names) the icons become blurry. It's good to know the cause, although frustrating that there's not a good fix.

Resetting my resolution to macOS scaled and restarting BTT does fix the blurriness.

Thank you so much for your work on this! After decades of using windows, switching to MacOS meant I needed so many apps like yours to be able to customize experience the way I wanted. I was using bettersnaptool before I got a touchbar device and have raved about this everywhere!

By the way: are there any API controls for touchbar brightness? I seem to only see it change brightness based on the ambient light sensor.

shaferz · September 25, 2018, 5:00pm

Same here. I upgraded to Mojave last night and then updated BTT this morning. After going to Mojave, icons were still crisp. After updating BTT this morning, the icons are back to blurry. Using QuickRes to run at 2560 x 1600. Going back to 1920 x 1200 then restarting BTT fixes it until I switch back to my preferred 2560 x 1600.

Glad I searched and saw I wasn't the only one with this phenomenon. .

srcnet2 · September 27, 2019, 7:44pm

Same here. I have a LG Ultrawide monitor and non system icons are blurry. I am not using any programs to change the resolution.

If I restart BTT or click like restore defaults while unplugged it's fine. It gets blurry again once the bar updates.

Happy to test or help anyway I can.

gekz · February 18, 2021, 7:15pm

The same here, but not after the edit, after sleeping I guess
And I'm using default mac resolution, no tweaks here