[v1.0.2] Touch Bar Done Right!

You can download the preset from here:
[v1.0.0] [v1.0.0] TouchBar Done Right!.bttpreset (1.0 MB)
[v.1.0.1] [v1.0.1] TouchBar Done Right.bttpreset (1.0 MB) (Added missing Play/Pause YouTube without switching to tab)
[v1.0.2] [v1.0.2] TouchBar Done Right.bttpreset (1.3 MB) (reworked YouTube video title recognition (fixed some instances where the title of the video would not be returned) and added a temporary fix for the Netflix "Skip Intro" widget pausing the video)
[v1.0.2] (Folivora link) https://share.folivora.ai/sharedPreset/e7042e42-4b8b-42f8-8854-f3176526e091

Hello everyone!

After a couple of weeks messing around with the functionalities that BetterTouchTool offered, I have decided to finally make my own presets, taking inspiration and some buttons from here and there in the community presets (credit will go where credit is due), as well as adding stuff I thought were missing and deemed worthy of the touchbar. After learning how to write scripts using applescripts and integrating JavaScript commands to them, I came up with “Touch Bar Done Right.”

My touchbar is somewhat limited, as it assumes that Safari is your main browser and that you use Spotify for music (although I’m pretty sure you’ll be able to adapt the applescripts pretty eaisily by switching the “Safari” word by “Chrome” or whaterver other browser you use) but if that’s the case, then you’re in luck cause this preset might just have everything you’re looking for!

Functionalities

This touchbar was built on the foundation of MagicTouch.

The default view of the touchbar will be featuring a triangle icon on the left which when pressed will open a new Finder window, and when long pressed, force open a new one in the current desktop space (in case one was already opened somewhere else).

Separated with a divider, you will find the app switcher. I put it there cause
I found it to be quite handy when using multiple and needing to switch between each quickly. Also, I like being able to see which apps are opened at a glance.

On the other side, you will find the battery state, which when pressed will bring up a “stats” group powered by iStat (you will have to install it in order to be able to see the stats, but don’t worry, it is free, not that hard to install and you can find it here). The stats show the temperatures of (from left to righ) the CPU, the GPU and Ram.

Next to the stats is an “Eject All” button, which when pressed ejects any and all drives plugged/virtual opened in your computer.

Next to that, is a “Bye, Bye” button. This button close closes every single app on your computer, hence the name ;-).

Pressing on “STATS” opens up the activity monitor.

The battery is then separated with a divider which when pressed brings up the clipboard menu. On the other side of the divider is the “coffee break” button (inspiration from minimalist BTT). This button puts the computer to sleep and locks it as well (this was missing from the minimalist’s BTT).

Then next to it is the “Snap Window” which icon will bring up a group of window snapping functionalities illustrated with icons. If you press on “Snap Window”, the frontmost window’s dimensions will be set to be centered on your screen.

Next to that is the application group. In this group you will be able to set the applications you use the most frequently and hate going to get them in the Dock, or apps that you don’t want in your dock but still use frequently.

If you press “APPLICATIONS” the preferences of BetterTouchTool will open.

This group features a “more” (little ‘+’ sign) button which will bring up more apps that you can set. Those are the ones you might not use so frequently but there a pain to get if you need them.

Now to the good stuff!

All of the above functionalities are a kind of standard or can be done through the software pretty easily.

The functionalities I add are a Youtube, Netflix and Spotify playing now, as well as some other goodies for these apps.

Lets start with Spotify:

The Spotify widget comes on only when Spotify is open and shows the name of the artist and track currently playing, as well as a previous and next song buttons surrounding it. The name of the track acts as a play pause button, and when long pressed opens Spotify.

Youtube:

The YouTube widget also shows up only when a video is playing. It shows up the name of the video currently playing, as well as a button that allows you to come back to your subscription page. If you press the title of the video, it will pause it and tell you that it is paused. If the video has ended, it will also tell you so. Long-pressing it will bring you to the currently playing youtube tab.

Best for last, Netflix:

This is my pride and joy, I spent many hours trying to make it work just the way I want, but it was worth it. This widget will only show up when a Netflix video is playing and will show the name of the episode currently playing, as well as the episode and season numbers. Taping the name will play and pause playback and tell you that it is paused. Just like youtube, if you long pressing the name will bring you to the Netflix tab. Next to the name is also a back button which will bring you back to the browsing screen.

When the intro starts playing, a button “Skip Intro” will show up and disappear when the intro has ended, obviously, pressing it will skip the intro.

Once the episode ends, a button “Play Next” will show up and when pressed will play the next episode. It will disappear once the next episode has started loading.

That’s it for my preset. I hope you enjoy it!

Feel free to strip it down and make better touch bars with it and tell me if you find any issues that might need fixing, or more efficient ways to do some stuff.

Wow! Seems like a nice preset you got there!

I very much like your neatly spaced-out controls and layouts, and i'm eyeing your Netflix widget... :eyes:

Also, how did you get that bezel-less Touch Bar? haha :wink:

You probably know me from my preset AquaTouch, and i'd like to ask if i could merge your Netflix toggles into it... of course you'll be credited in the changelog, and within the code too. I just wan to ask for permission and if the merge is okay with you, thats all.

I also recommend that you assign a group to open if you click on of your widgets:
Here's my YouTube one for example:

1 Like

Hey!

Yeah, of course, go ahead, that's what a community is for!
Although, I do have to warn you that I have just noticed an issue with the "Skip Intro" button: when I use it to skip the intro, it pauses the video as well, and for the love of me, I can't figure out why haha so, if you find a solution for that, let me know !

And for the group for the player, I've thought about it, but I multitask a lot and I like having all the controls at my disposition all the time and not have to switch so much, which is why I made it so that if you pressed any of the widgets I've got (youtube, spotify, netflix) you can do all the actions without being redirected to the page, even if it is not in the foreground, AND that I make them appear and disappear only when useful!

Enjoy ! :slight_smile:

1 Like

wait wait, does it play/pause YouTube without switching to it's window?

Currently in my preset, iTunes and Spotify have this functionality. It's quite useful to specifically tell, say iTunes to stop. Does your one do this for YouTube? I've yet to try this out for an extended time. It'll be great if it does!

It should have been but thanks for making me realize that it didn't, now it does! haha

I'm gonna upload the new presets now, and let you check it out.

I have set it up this way because sometimes I just don't want to be switched to the tab, I hate being redirected when I do something haha.

1 Like

Hey!

I have uploaded a new version of the presets with reworked title recognition for YouTube and a temporary fix for Netflix Skip Intro widget if you want to check it out :slightly_smiling_face:

1 Like

Just merged. Works great!

I'd like to nudge this to you, i'm trying to work it out but i'm having trouble with a certain part:
You might be interested!

Does the ESC button really align fully to the left right above the top left ~ button, or is it just the way you made your visualisation? I noticed it on the top image.

the display doesn't go all the way to the left, so it's a bit fake :slight_smile: It still looks very nice though!

I see, right ^^ Thanks

New to BTT and am loving Touch Bar Done Right so far. I've disabled everything else and am only using your mod right now. I still can't get any of the gestures you've added to work. They look simple enough and they're just using the default gesture API, but none of my two/three/four finger swipes do anything besides reveal a white bar passing through the entire touch bar.

Is there something else I need to configure to get swipe gestures to work?

Hi,

I’m glad you’re enjoying the preset so far!

For the gestures, I have also noticed that when trying to download it on another Mac, and I think it’s a big related to BTT itself but to fix it, you can just go into the « gestures » folder, and click on « add widget/gesture » just mimick the ones that are there (I.e. 2 finger right —> volume up and so on).
I would also advice to double click on the widget once created and change the editable field from 1 to 0.5 for the volume gestures as I think 1 is to slow.

Hope that helps, let me know if you need more precise information

1 Like

That fixed it! I just removed all the existing swipe gestures and re-added them. Works like a charm now, thanks!

Thank you iAmWaldo so much for providing this preset!
A few questions -

  1. is it possible to have ESC behave the same as the 'X' to close a menu? I've remapped my caps lock to send the ESC signal, and I use it to back out of everything else, so it'd be nice if it was recognized as a way to back out of the preset menus as well.

  2. The 2/3/4 finger gestures don't seem to actually work. The UI changes to a slider (yay!) but volume/brightness/keyboard lights don't actually change. Did I miss something during installation? (whoops - saw the commenter right above this with the same problem, so I'll dig into that myself - yep. it fixed it.. :smile: )

  3. is it possible to change the applications that show up in the secondary menu (the one triggered when you tap the downward arrow) ? or perhaps for me, can I drop that functionality altogether ? I use Alfred to launch apps. (Answer is yes.. it is very easy to hide the applications button by editing the preset in BTT.)

  4. Have you tried installing iStats with rbenv ? I seem to be having issues with the combination, but asking for help with this is probably outside the scope?

edit: Funny enough - your preset configuration was pretty close to my personal preference. It was close enough to get me to start digging into BTT myself to customize for my needs. So not only thanks for providing your work for us to use, thanks for inspiring me to learn something new :wink:

@iAmWaldo hi! Showing current netflix episode doesn't work for me. Do you have some ideas why is it?

Hey there! You need to allow Safari to run JavaScript coming from Apple Events. To do so, open the preferences in Safari and go to the Advanced tab. At the bottom check "Show Develop menu in menu bar". Then, in the new menu item "Develop", check the "Allow JavaScript from Apple Events" option.

This is awesome! I have a few questions:

  1. Is there any way to have the scripts run for Google Chrome instead of Safari? I tried switching the application name from "Safari" to "Google Chrome" but it didn't work.
  2. Is there a script for Spotify similar to those of Netflix and Youtube? I want the "Now Playing" widget for Spotify to disappear when it's not being played (when Netflix or Youtube are playing)

Thank you!

The "Youtube running: script" is since the latest version of BTT always visible if it has been visual once in a session. Any tips?

Hello, first thanks your preset is just amazing and easy to use, I could already figure out some parts to adjust, but can you explain for dummies exactly how I can get iStat run correctly on the tour bar?

hi
The skip button for Netflix takes 5-10 seconds to work. How do I make it faster? Also, the next episode button isnt working...
thanks