Mac Apps With Touch Bar Support

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Oct 27, 2016  The Touch Bar is perfect for this moment, putting the most relevant Word features at your fingertips. One tap and you can quickly apply a new style to a heading or paragraph. You can also now insert comments, photos or hyperlinks directly from Touch Bar. Touch Bar commands in PowerPoint allow you to easily manipulate graphic elements. Apr 03, 2018  Touch Bar Piano. Apart from the Djay functionality, there is another way to have fun using the touch bar on your new MacBook pro. Touch bar piano is perfectly blended on the touch bar. When you launch the application, the piano keys appear on the touch bar. As you touch the keys the Mac makes sounds respectively. Aug 13, 2018  Learn how to use the Touch Bar on your MacBook Pro. To learn more about this topic visit the following article: How to use the Touch Bar on your MacBook Pro: Additional. Twitter for Mac now has (very basic) Touch Bar support on MacBook Pro and Sidecar. Zac Hall - Jan. 8th 2020 6:50 am PT @apollozac. Mac Twitter Touch Bar. The Touch Bar is a full $500 less. Hi Matthew, The Touch Bar support for Office 2016 is still rolling out and the accurate timeline for this is not available. Please refer to: Office for Mac adds Touch Bar suppor t.Therefore, you can monitor our Office Blog for the timeline and check for Office 2016 for mac updates regularly. Please refer to: Check for Office for Mac updates automatically.

Touch Bar Overview

The Touch Bar is a Retina display and input device located above the keyboard on supported MacBook Pro models. Dynamic controls in the Touch Bar let people interact with content on the main screen and offer quick access to system-level and app-specific functionality based on the current context. For example, when people type text in a document, the Touch Bar could include controls for adjusting the font style and size. Or when viewing a location on a map, the Touch Bar could offer quick, one-tap access to nearby points of interest.

The following guidelines can help you provide a Touch Bar experience that people appreciate. For developer guidance, see NSTouchBar and Xcode Help.

Configuration and Customization

A Touch ID sensor to the right of the Touch Bar supports fingerprint authentication for logging into the computer and approving App Store and Apple Pay purchases. On devices that include the Touch Bar (2nd generation), a physical Esc (Escape) key appears to the left of the Touch Bar.

Mac Apps With Touch Bar Support Free

By default, the right side of the Touch Bar displays an expandable region called the Control Strip that includes controls for performing system-level tasks such as invoking Siri, adjusting the brightness of the main display, and changing the volume. You can place app-specific controls in the app region to the left of the Control Strip. In Touch Bar (1st generation), an Esc button or other system-provided button may appear to the left of the app region, depending on the context.

People can configure the Touch Bar to suit their needs. For example, people can remove items from, or hide the Control Strip completely, in which case only the controls in the app region and the system button remain. Alternatively, people can hide the app region to view an expanded Control Strip.

You can support additional customization within the app region by letting people add and remove items.

In general, let people customize your app’s Touch Bar experience. Provide reasonable defaults for important and commonly used functions, but let people make adjustments to support their individual working styles.

Provide alternative text labels for your Touch Bar controls.By providing alternative text for your controls in the Touch Bar, VoiceOver can audibly describe the controls, making navigation easier for people with visual impairments. (For guidance, see Accessibility.) Also create labels for any customizable Touch Bar controls that you provide so VoiceOver can describe these controls on the customization screen.

Gestures

People use a subset of the standard gestures to interact with the Touch Bar.

Touch

Tap

People tap to activate a control, like a button, or select an item, such as an emoji, a color, or a segment in a segmented control.

Touch and Hold

A touch and hold gesture initiates a control’s secondary action. In Mail, for example, tapping the Flag button adds a flag to a message, but touching and holding the button reveals a modal view that lets people change the flag’s color.

Horizontal Swipe or Pan

People use a horizontal swipe or pan to drag an element, like a slider thumb, or navigate through content, such as a list of dates or a group of photos in a scrubber.

Multi-Touch

Although the Touch Bar supports Multi-Touch gestures — like a pinch — such gestures can be cumbersome for people to perform. In general, it’s best to use Multi-Touch gestures sparingly.

Design Fundamentals

Keep the following guidance in mind as you design your app’s Touch Bar interfaces.

Make the Touch Bar relevant to the current context on the main screen. Identify the different contexts within your app. Then, consider how you can expose varying levels of functionality based on how your app is used.

Use the Touch Bar as an extension of the keyboard and trackpad, not as a display. Although the Touch Bar is a screen, its primary function is to serve as an input device — not a secondary display. People may glance at the Touch Bar to locate or use a control, but their primary focus is the main screen. The Touch Bar shouldn’t display alerts, messages, scrolling content, static content, or anything else that distracts people from the main screen.

Strive to match the look of the physical keyboard. When possible, aim to design Touch Bar controls that resemble the size and color of keys in the physical keyboard.

Avoid making functionality available only in the Touch Bar. Not all devices have a Touch Bar, and people can disable app controls in the Touch Bar if they choose. Always give people ways to perform tasks using the keyboard or trackpad.

In a full-screen context, consider displaying relevant controls in the Touch Bar. In full-screen mode, apps often hide onscreen controls and reveal them only when people call for them by, for example, moving the pointer to the top of the screen. If you support full screen, you can use the Touch Bar to give people persistent access to important controls without distracting them from the full-screen experience.

Prefer controls that produce immediate results. Ideally, Touch Bar controls give people quick ways to perform actions that would otherwise require extra time spent clicking controls or choosing from menus. Minimize Touch Bar controls that present additional choices, such as popovers. For guidance, see Controls and Views.

Be responsive to Touch Bar interactions. Even when your app is busy doing work or updating the main screen, respond instantly when people use a Touch Bar control.

When possible, people should be able to start and finish a task in the Touch Bar. Avoid making people switch to the keyboard or trackpad to complete a task unless the task requires more complex interface controls than the Touch Bar provides.

Avoid using the Touch Bar for tasks associated with well-known keyboard shortcuts. The Touch Bar shouldn’t include controls for tasks such as find, select all, deselect, copy, cut, paste, undo, redo, new, save, close, print, and quit. It also shouldn’t include controls that replicate key-based navigation, such as page up and page down.

Accurately reflect the state of a control that appears in both the Touch Bar and on the main screen. For example, if a button is unavailable on the main screen, it shouldn't be available in the Touch Bar.

When responding to user interactions, avoid showing the same UI in both the Touch Bar and the main screen. For example, when people click the onscreen Emoji & Symbols button in a new message window in Mail, they expect the Character Viewer to open on the main screen, not in the Touch Bar. Unless people interact with the same control in both places, avoid distracting people by displaying redundant UI.

Editor’s note 3/6/2017:
This post has been updated to reflect current Touch Bar for Outlook functionality.

Editor’s note 2/14/2017:
This post has been updated to reflect additional Touch Bar functionality for Word and PowerPoint for Mac. Also, February updates to Word, Excel and PowerPoint for Mac include a new object rotation slider on the Touch Bar, which provides a more intuitive and precise rotation experience.

Today’s post was written by Kirk Koenigsbauer, corporate vice president for the Office team.

At the Apple event earlier today, we announced that Office for Mac is adding Touch Bar support. We have a long history of working with Apple to support new form factors and devices, and—as you can see from the news this week—we’re continually evolving Office to take advantage of the latest and greatest hardware innovations across the industry. Through the Touch Bar, Office intelligently puts the most common commands at your fingertips—all based on what you’re doing in the document. Here’s a quick summary of what we announced in Cupertino this morning.

Mac Apps With Touch Bar Support Center

Word

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Now from the Touch Bar you can enter Word Focus Mode, a brand-new experience that hides all of the on-screen ribbons and commands so you can simply focus on your work. The Touch Bar is perfect for this moment, putting the most relevant Word features at your fingertips. One tap and you can quickly apply a new style to a heading or paragraph. You can also now insert comments, photos or hyperlinks directly from Touch Bar.

Mac Touch Bar Not Showing

PowerPoint

Touch Bar commands in PowerPoint allow you to easily manipulate graphic elements. The Reorder Objects button produces a graphical map of all the layers on a slide, making it easy to find the right object and move it where you want it. And by sliding your finger across the Touch Bar you can easily rotate an object to get just the right angle. Controls are now available on the Touch Bar when your presentation is available in Slideshow View, including slide thumbnails and a timer to help you keep track of time as you present.

Excel

Typing an equals sign into a cell in Excel immediately pulls up the most recently used functions in the Touch Bar. For example, with a tap (for the formula) and another tap (for a named range) in the Touch Bar, you can quickly sum a range in your spreadsheet. The Touch Bar also provides quick access to borders, cell colors and recommended charts—making it easier than ever to organize and visualize your data.

Outlook

Mac Apps With Touch Bar Support Center

Finally, the Touch Bar in Outlook provides quick access to the most commonly used commands as you work on email and manage your calendar. When composing a new mail or meeting request, the Touch Bar displays the common formatting options. When viewing your calendar you can switch between different views. And when viewing the reminders window, you can join an online meeting with one tap on the Touch Bar.

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It’s been an exciting week—and a particularly rewarding two days for us here on the Office team. As you can imagine, there’s a lot of work that goes on behind the scenes to bring these ideas to life, and it’s a thrill to finally show you what we’ve been up to. From the announcements we made with the Windows and Surface teams on Wednesday—including Ink Editor, Ink Replay, digital ruler, Segment Eraser, support for 3D models and integrations with the Surface Studio and Surface Dial—to the Touch Bar integration we unveiled with Apple this morning, we’re working hard to take advantage of the very latest in hardware and software innovation from across the industry.

Mac Apps With Touch Bar Support Free

—Kirk Koenigsbauer