Feature Request: Touches on leftmost area of Touch Bar is recognized as Esc

[Gal3riel]

The default Touch Bar can recognize touches on the leftmost area (without OLED underneath) as Esc key. It would be great if EnergyBar can share the same behavior.

[billziss-gh]

@Gal3riel I have tried this many times with the default touch bar, but it does not work for me. (2018 Macbook Pro 13 inch.)

Are you sure you do not inadvertently tap esc when you think you are only touching the leftmost area?

[Gal3riel]

Hi, I checked default touch bar, BetterTouchTool's toolbar and EnergyBar. The first two have the same the same behavior as I described above. My hardware is 2017 MacBook Pro 15. I can shoot a video to demonstrate the touch recognization differences around esc key.

[billziss-gh]

@Gal3riel interesting. This may be a difference between the 15 inch and 13 inch Macbook versions.

[billziss-gh]

@Gal3riel I have now tried this on a 2018 Macbook Pro 15 inch and I still do not observe the behavior you described.

[stevenvar]

Hi, I also have the native behaviour that OP describes where touching the black area on the left of the esc virtual key is recognized as a tap on the key. I could make a video if you need to see it

I have a 2018 MBP 13

[billziss-gh]

After trying many times I was finally able to see this! It becomes visible in a pronounced manner if I hold my finger on that area rather than the light tap that I was doing earlier.

I will look around Apple's private frameworks and see if something comes up that will help us with this.

[billziss-gh]

One possibility is to try using the documented escapeKeyReplacementItemIdentifier property and see if that gives us the desired behavior.

[Gal3riel]

I tried to set escapeKeyReplacementItemIdentifier in the NSTouchBar but it did not expand the esc key's touch area.

[billziss-gh]

@Gal3riel thanks for trying. I have also tried the same with no success.