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BetterTouchTool Blog
boastr.net · Company blog · on HN since 2013
The developer blog for BetterTouchTool, a Mac utility for custom gestures, shortcuts, and Touch Bar configuration.
What HN saysHN commenters recommend BetterTouchTool for custom trackpad gestures, a third mouse button, and Touch Bar setups, and note its two-year update pricing.
21HN people shared it
18linked it in comments
3stories submitted
9story points
9 years agolast shared
2013people per year2026
Most-shared posts
- 1Homepage14 people · first shared 2013
- 2Second touchbar alpha available2 people · first shared 2017
- 3BetterTouchTool will switch from free to a “Pay what you want” model1 people · 4 points · first shared 2016 · 1 comments on HN
- 4BetterTouchTool: Customize Your Touch Bar1 people · 3 points · first shared 2016 · 1 comments on HN
- 5BetterTouchTool will switch from free to a “Pay what you want” model1 people · 2 points · first shared 2016 · discussion on HN
- 6Bettertouchtool pre alpha with touch bar support1 people · first shared 2016
- 7Bettertouchtool touch bar customization1 people · first shared 2017
- 8Bettertouchtool paid upgrades1 people · first shared 2017
What HN people wrote when they linked it
ciaranm · 2017-01-11
Try BetterTouchTool[https://www.boastr.net/]. I'm using it to customise my TouchBar for each app I use, and it's great. Touchbar version is an alpha - but I've found it mostly stable.
xemoka · 2014-05-20
For a third button you can get BetterTouchTool[1] and set up an event for the Tackpad under "Global". I have tapping the top right of the track pad (about a 1cm square) trigger the third mouse button. Perhaps it's not as great as a real middle mouse button (can't middle drag, real pain for GIS and CAD software) but it does handle opening links in new tabs and closing tabs via middle click.
[1]: http://www.boastr.net/
kmf · 2013-11-25
Someone else mentioned Keyremap4macbook (https://pqrs.org/macosx/keyremap4macbook/). There's a huge amount of customization there, enough that you should be good to go just by looking through the options there. My favorite is remapping Caps Lock to Left CTRL. Then you can remap Left CTRL to be escape by itself, and CTRL+<yourkey> when pressed with other keys. It's very handy in Vim, especially.
A couple other recommendations, however:
BetterTouchTool: The MBP trackpad has a surprising amount of complexity in terms of recognizing gestures. BTT adds to that . http://www.boastr.net
Keyboard Maestro: Scripting and advanced keyboard shortcuts. Includes support for per-app shortcuts, which is pretty phenomenal. http://www.keyboardmaestro.com
TextExpander: Less practical when you're programming, but TE can be great for automating things you write often (email address, email responses, URLs, etc.) http://smilesoftware.com/TextExpander/
DontGiveTwoFlux · 2017-10-11
You can try out Better Touch Tool to add a ton of custom gestures to whatever mapping you want.
For example, I use a four finger swipe down to hit CMD-W, which closes the window in focus for most apps.
https://www.boastr.net/
kharms · 2017-09-27
Better Touch Tool is introducing a great pay model where
you get 2 years of updates from the purchase date.
https://www.boastr.net/bettertouchtool-paid-upgrades/
michaelwu · 2017-08-28
Starting to go off topic but have you checked out BetterTouchTool[1]? It's not _just_ another window tiling app for the Mac. It also lets you conveniently remap trackpad gestures and taps, 3rd party mice (yes you can remap your side buttons if you want), keyboard shortcuts, etc. The coolest thing is that if you really want, you can also restrict your remaps to work only in certain applications. I've been using it for years and just wanted to share.
[1]: https://www.boastr.net
epaga · 2017-05-03
Or alternatively BetterTouchTool, which additionally allows Touch Bar customization if you have a tMBP. https://www.boastr.net/
jewbacca · 2017-03-17
BetterTouchTool (https://www.boastr.net/) is kinda like an AutoHotKey for OS X -- but on top of custom keyboard shortcuts, it also allows you to configure custom trackpad gestures.
It's easily saved me 100+ hours -- a half-second at a time, 400 times a day. And probably a couple cases of RSI, a couple inches of finger contortion at a time.
The economy of motion is as far beyond keyboard shortcuts as keyboard shortcuts are beyond hunting around with a mouse. It's crime more people don't use it.
ronyeh · 2017-02-01
FYI: BetterTouchTool allows you to customize your touchbar to add custom buttons. You could create buttons for your most commonly used keystrokes in IntelliJ.
https://www.boastr.net/
btown · 2016-12-23
FYI BetterTouchTools supposedly lets you customize the touch bar for arbitrary apps. Haven't tried it on a touch bar myself but it's an amazing utility regardless.
https://www.boastr.net/bettertouchtool-pre-alpha-with-touch-bar-suppor…
(I believe stable has this feature now as well.)
monkmartinez · 2016-11-06
You mean like the ginormous trackpad directly beneath the keyboard? Wouldn't it be cool if they built scrubbing/scrolling right into that?
Also, dynamic shortcuts! Like the kind you get with BetterTouchTool[1]?
[1]https://www.boastr.net/
x0054 · 2014-02-10
Better Touch Tool - http://www.boastr.net/
Slate - https://github.com/jigish/slate
Both will do what you want. Also, you can add a 5th modifier key to avoid conflicts: http://stevelosh.com/blog/2012/10/a-modern-space-cadet/
TheSoftwareGuy · 2014-01-13
http://www.boastr.net/
you can add tons of additional trackpad shortcuts too, as well as keyboard shortcuts.
quarterto · 2014-01-02
There's also BetterTouchTool[1], which also has the drag-window-to-side-of-screen-half-maximize behaviour from Windows.
[1]: http://www.boastr.net/
amai · 2015-12-22
See also Bettertouchtool (http://www.boastr.net/).
Razengan · 2018-01-08
The utility of Better Touch Tool in customizing the Touch Bar to a "pro" or personalized workflow can't be overstated:
https://www.boastr.net/bettertouchtool-touch-bar-customization/
https://medium.com/productivity-freak/what-if-you-could-really-customi…
sleepybrett · 2017-01-10
BetterTouchTool seems to be coming to the rescue here.
https://www.boastr.net/second-touchbar-alpha-available/
I haven't played with it yet, but it looks like as long as the thing you want to do has a hotkey you can use this to make touchbar button to do it whenever you are in that particular app.
ArlenBales · 2017-01-04
There's an app called BetterTouchTool that lets you create your own contextualized Touch Bar buttons that can execute any command(s). It's one of their recent updates: https://www.boastr.net/second-touchbar-alpha-available/
Does anyone know of other apps that let you take control of the touch bar?