An idea to compete with the Apple touch bar

In a typical MATE setup, by default there are two taskbars but I feel like those taskbars have a lot of wasted space. After seeing Apple’s new Macbook Pro with the touchbar, I couldn’t help but to think how neat it would be if somebody decided to duplicate the effort for Linux systems and make a suite of plugins to go with a panel applet which would show dynamic actions per-application for users with touch-enabled displays or users with third-party products like the Neonode AirBar which adds touchscreen support for any display not already touch-capable.

It sounds like a dumb idea at first, But I am sure the lot of you could figure out some compelling use cases for sunch functionality, since after all Apple did.

Is this functionality anyone is interested in? Does it seem like a waste of effort telling of or encouraging poor interface design? Is it even wanted, and if so, does a solution exist already?

Hi @tiox,

I don’t have a touch-screen but I am sure that some users might find it helpful, there is of course Plank which some users might also prefer?. (It is installed by default in UM I think ?) :smiley:

For anyone that doesn’t know about Plank:

See also:

That’s the thing; Plank is a dock. What i am talking about is more a helper that works with other programs to provide certain ease-of-access features, such as shortcuts to common program actions, or interaction with media.

In fact, it may be better discussed with onboard developers because what I am talking about could very well be an onboard feature; the capability for onboard to act as a dock loaded by itself or via an applet with plugin support for inter-application operations for such program shortcuts and media interaction features.

I see no way for a dock panel to do the same thing I am suggesting by itself; Duplicating and iterating upon the functionality of the Apple touch bar.

I don't know anything about Apple and neither do I want to, I just read this which doesn't do Apple any favours?:

If it is simply a case of setting up short-cuts, couldn't this be done by using the current tools in Ubuntu Mate?:

Pardon my ignorance but I have no idea how touch-screens work and don't know what it takes to get them working in Ubuntu (Linux)!. :frowning:

Pardoned…

…What?

Uh-huh. Okay, the general idea behind touchscreen interaction is a convenience of not needing to place your pointer onto an interactive object via a mouse or touchpad, but rather, to tap onto the screen to make whatever happen, which in theory would be faster to do with your fingers than it would be with the swooping motions of your pointer device.

From my experience booting into a PC with a touchcreen, general functionality is there but I am not certain if gesture functions would work, as that seems more favoured for smartphones, but press for right-click and tap for left-click seems to work.

I remember there was a means for calibration of touch displays but I am not certain of the exact means, and as with anything in Linux that isn’t a file interaction, performance may vary between machines but there is some support for that functionality since more and more newer laptops are coming with a screen you can touch much like a tablet or smartphone.

As for whether or not touch could be added to a device without replacing the display, I’ll get in touch with Neonode about their AirBar and see what support is there for open-source systems. While I’ve never been particularly fond of any idea beyond mouse and keyboard, as an instructional tool and as for something computer newbies can work with it seems like a good idea to add these kinds of interactivity, but companies are trying to make efforts for ease-of-use where people are already use to the ease of a mouse and keyboard. You seem to fall into that camp, while I ascribe to the idea that options beyond conventional interaction do exist, and should matter.

Poor choice of words on my part, I do know what a touch-screen does, what drivers are included in Linux are a mystery to me!.

I know that they basically replace the mouse/keyboard but from what I have seen on forums etc, they leave the screen in a real mess and the monitor has to been cleaned very often, I am sure that there are many people with them but I have never come across anyone I know that has one!. :smiley:

I am in favour of your idea though!. :smiley:

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A follow-up about the Neonode AirBar; It works for Chrome OS, so unless there is some secret sauce not in a typical Gentoo installation then it should work for all Linux.

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Going back to the original post,

What’s the interest in competing against Apple’s touchbar if it means copying?

On the other hand, “Apple did it” never really meant much in the UI landscape. Case in point, touchscreen gestures seems just like the same bad idea as mouse gestures, which tend to get in the way of the user who more than often ends up activating an action they didn’t intend to simply because they wavered their mouse pointer around and inadvertently matched a pattern. Another argument against gestures is how they fragment usage patterns. This makes it harder for users to use another computer which doesn’t have the same gestures saved and also overcomplicates what could be a simple and traditional common usage patterns between applications.

Admittedly, touchscreens UIs have added gestures since their inception. Swipe and enlarge come to mind. But these are ubiquitous among all applications that support similar operations and amount to the same “gesture” concept as a mouse special operations, like right-click, click and drag, etc.

However, I admit I don’t have an argument against why it couldn’t be developed as a plugin. Just arguments as to why I would personally not use it.

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I had a try of this touch bar at an Apple Store. My first thoughts were “kinda cool”, “you nicked a similar idea I had as a kid!” and “nothing outside of Apple will work with this… not Linux or Windows”.

What I think should happen is to “standardize” this type of UI, so software can easily add integration. Only then would it make sense to develop a MATE plugin so applications that are “touch bar aware” can appear on the dock, without the need for touch screen hardware.

Just my thoughts on the subject.

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And it’s because there is no standard for an adaptive interface. The only thing standard, really is an ever-changing menu bar which Apple did first, and Ubuntu took wholesale for Unity.

Not saying that Apple makes standards, but it’s pretty compelling to say Apple influences what companies do, despite having such a small market share in comparison. Consider this idea; Apple had a huge hit with their MP3 player series known as the iPod. There were so many people with iPods that it was outnumbering other MP3 players in some regions. Microsoft later tried to compete with the Zine and despite it being potentially superior it flopped.

Apple used the momentum from the iPod to launch the iPhone. Lots of people were on clamshell phones but despite other companies trying to do what Apple did first, Apple made smartphones a “Popular” thing to have. iPhones would later displace PDAs which were probably inspired by the Apple Newton.

Even the PC market has Apple written all over it, which is why laptops nowdays are coming with fewer ports, and are becoming thinner than ever instead of just being the same. I personally hate it, but that’s because I want a laptop that can survive being in a backpack without having a hardshell case to go around it.

Despite Lenovo being an absolute flop with its adaptive interface, I’ve seen HP try to do something “Similar” (albeit a faux approach) with an Pavilion dv4 which has a capacitive touch surface similar in form to the Apple touchbar. If Apple’s laptop is popular enough, I anticipate there will be a PC standard which Linux could lead the way in heading for Microsoft to later implement in Windows, but developers need to code the support in, and there needs to be an open-source standard for this kind of functionality which other companies can take and implement as they wish.

I personally like the idea of developers coding for a universal standard that can simply reside in a toolbar and could be enabled by the user on a per-application basis because not all applications will need such functionality, nor the user would want such functionality for all applications. And it would provide a use for the empty space in most GTK dual-panel interfaces.

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Hallo

A bit of a luddite here I supose. I like the Mate desktop. The way it is. Ubuntu-Mate was a great idea that turned into a great distro.

So much of the modern world consists of packaging - I prefer good solid content wrapped in brown paper and string. Ubuntu-Mate comes in very nice green paper and the Welcome Centre is a very helpful multi-use piece of string. In short, a joy. :slight_smile: Back to the future…

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A great thing about the MATE desktop is you can make it how you want. It’s not limited in its function, and I am not asking for limited functionality. I am just trolling the waters a bit here to see what people think about the touchbar, if they want it, and how it can be emulated in an open-source system, and beyond.

It seems like the post-mortem takeaway is nobody cares. And that’s fine; I don’t expect more manufacturers to make the touch bar thing a big deal and add it into next year’s models come Q2 but shortcuts to common functions buried in menus would be nice, and having programs interact with an applet would be the easiest implementation of the touch bar I can think of without significant workload being put upon DE makers because then a touchscreen can be used to interact with it, and it’s drop-and-run for MATE and whoever else decides to port the idea to GNOME-Shell, Cinnamon, KDE et cetera.

Although a tad old, an interesting link nonetheless! (Note that this is about Windblows!):

Which is exactly why solutions like Neonode’s AirBar are great; You can buy a PC without touchscreen functionality, then when you need it, you can stick that thing on and plug it in.

Not to promote them, it’s the only “External touchscreen” I know about with some depth. That and their hardware works on Chrome OS which is basically Gentoo, should mean it’s plug-and-play for the rest of us.