"We decided that rather than just remove the Touch Bar and lose the benefits some people get, we could instead add the Escape key. While we were doing that, we had already in the MacBook Air created a discrete Touch ID button. People really like that. So the decision was made to keep the Touch Bar, but also to create room on either side for the Escape key and Touch ID key. That is the best solution for the largest number of people we’ve dealt with who had complaints — and kept something innovative that people were using with Touch Bar.” - Phil Schiller, Apple Inc., Nov., 13. 2019
This separated "Esc"-Button should then be referred to as "The Schneider Key"
another one now - I hope that this one never happens again
very stressy times here
I’m working daily on different customer solutions, on different vpn’s, remote access, etc.
had a deadline on friday, so I activated a vpn (via Apple native network settings) on monday or thuesday - but landed on different vpn… did not pay much attention to that, thought that I ‘misclicked’ as a choosed the vpn from the pop-up. Closed that vpn, activated again, seemed to be ok.
I got error messages as I started working, telling me that one file was not found - but that file appeared in the list - and by trying another time, all was well
there was a table with more than 2’600 records but all the same content in all fields
when hitting cmd-f, the find menu-items appeared but the mag’ glass icon did not show in the fields and I had to press cmd-b to reactivate browse mode, ‘perform find’ did not work.
Layout-mode was sometimes possible, sometimes not
filemaker (tried all from 16 to 18) crashed every couple of minutes
every other connection (to other customers) was fine
I went out of my office, using the MacBook instead of the 6-core usb-c MacMini, all fine
at my office, it failed again (with that vpn)
I stopped working on that solution, called the IT of that customer, all well there
then, I checked that site via MacBook, same network as the Mini: All fine
<Restarting!>, I thought…
Problem is, that those fancy usb-c Minis won’t restart properly. We got 3 of them, two with 2 monitor setup and thunderbolt raids (thunderbolt display one one Mini, Samsung on the other). Those 2-monitor Minis will loose screen and/or disks after the restart (funny thing, when focus is on that monitor that does not show…). My personal Mini will fire up without the disks (one thunderbolt raid, one usb-3 disk) and I have to mount disks via disk-utility…
That’s why, we do not restart those machines
I have to say that after the last system-update, my monitors will show and the disk problem is much better if not solved (but one is still afraid)
Anyway - after the restart, everything works perfect again. There must be a problem with that vpn as I activated that
Never had this before.
What is the ‘most frequent’ here?? Well, not restarting frequently…
unfortunately, it wasn’t a restart-issue. Happened again today.
Since the customer is on V16, I am working on v16 as well
deleted the vpn
re-created that vpn from scratch, manually entering all data
– no change
checked with the MacBook in the same network
– MacBook runs without one problem
since there is a starter file, I copied that from the MB to the Mini
– no success
deleted preferences for fm, all files that were in use today
– no success
tried v15
– success, tried many times, 15 is ok, 16 not
– earlier this week, I checked V17/18 what also failed, but never v15
– from this point, I knew where to dive in
There is one difference between the MB and the Mini, also matches V15
Clipmanager Plugin!!
that beast was installed by the file that came with clip-manager, was not aware of that, thought that I checked clip-manager under the MacBook (bought the plugin in the last week of october)
With clip-manager plugin in the extensions folder, there are 2 or 3 FM files more in the list of windows, without that plugin, those files appear not, checked that countless times. One of those files was the culprit, although no idea why.
the solution was also on one of my local fm servers, but not anymore
after opening that file, it showed for all 2’600 records the same data, could not switch to find or layout mode
without that plugin, all fine. The file shows the correct name of the server in its title, btw
Since that file does not show without the plugin, the issue does no longer exists
Will now investigate some more minutes, maybe there is a clip stored that references to that solution, will then write a bug report to clip-manager
Anyway, that’s why I hate automatically installed stuff!
Strange thing that, really strange. Also no idea why it worked right after the restart
I lost that much time because of this, that one or two hours more or less won’t make any difference - so I’ll spend that (the deadline was on Friday, way too late anyways…)
I’m also about to dump that plugin (again). Live is too short for fiddeling around with things like that… (or I’m too old…)
A question for the touchbar users. I depend heavily on F5, F6 and F7 within their script debugger to step through.
How do you find this on the touchbar? Can you do it say on F6 for one step at a time, can you avoid accidentally hitting F5 of F7 and accidentally jumping ahead?
It’s easy. The keys are effectively in the same position as the original function keys. They are displayed as being only half the height but they remain the same width. Unlike keys of old, they don’t fail if you aren’t striking them centrally, so they are extremely easy to use.
I have the touchbar configured to display app-specific assistance, plus the control bar. That’s my default setup. Then I add FileMaker to the list of apps that display the Fn bar rather than the default control strip. It took me a while to discover that setup was possible.
I can avoid hitting F5 or F7 accidentally. I can’t speak for you though
depending on habits, since the esc-key is not ‘feelable’, I touch that key every now and then unintended - in filemaker, a textbox (cf, comments, etc.) will be closed without any warning - work lost…
I rarely use function keys in general and for the touchbar, I’m focussing the screen of the MacBook, not that bar… But the only real problem I got with the tb is that escape-key.
That said, there are some fine features with the tb, ie mail accounts, safari, etc. - but here, the tb is one of the features I can live without - would not miss it
Since the tb is MacBook-only, it makes IMHO no sense to use it in FM (MBS plugin…) - not so many of our customers are working with MacBooks (but many iMacs, Minis,)
I’m writing a lot on the glass-keyboard on the iPad - and miss-tipps because of no ‘feel’ are a problem - more with every new iOS, because of new gadgets that are worth not much in daily usage, such as the so-called trackpad (buggy, iPad only, not on the new, bigger phones, etc.)
I could write much faster with earlier iPads… there are other things involved (iPad), ie the ‘auto-correct’ that I have to disable because I’m writing in more than one language. On the iPhone, I got only german and there, the dictionary is quite good
I have the tb fixed to Fn keys. The tb is only available on MacBook. In office (where I do 90% of dev work) I have a regular keyboard, no tb available. This makes the tb experience patchy and this is also true for users in general. Good old Fn keys still rule in FM world. When on MacBook internal keyboard I like using tb for selecting address in email.
The fact that Apple does not offer a consistent tb experience (external keyboard) may keep adaption low.
Thanks to the both of you. Interestingly I’m testing ready for an upgrade to go in tomorrow running various versions of FileMaker Pro Advanced on a MacBook Air, HP Windows 10 laptop, iPad Pro and a new HP ChromeBook (remember we are Citrix and RemoteApp). All of this is script testing as we’re finally migrating this solution away from v15 MDI to v18 SDI, which is a big deal for us.
I don’t have function keys on the iPad or the ChromeBook and having to click the mouse each script step is so less efficient than continually tapping F6. Trying to use the infotainment system within my Skoda Kodiaq is really really difficult as you’re moving and there is nothing physical to grab to locate my fingers. I feel the touchbar would give me a similar problem, without something to locate my finger (back to the crashing warship story).
I seriously believe the touchbar is a ‘well we can’t add a touchscreen to the MacBook after all we’ve said, what else can we do?’ approach (anyone who’s used OneNote on a SurfaceBook will say what a great tool it can be and one of us does all his FM development on one). Then again, we were told we’d never see a stylus on an iPad!
It still seems to be a solution looking for a problem and for now the MacBook Air does give me what I’m looking for.
I’m driving a not-the-latest-model Voyager and I got knobs - I am really happy to change the heating, clima control without having to ‘turn’ my eyes away, works without looking, just feeling
We got customers who are happy with the tb - older people who are happy to read what email-account, what website. No one of them is a hard core user who is every day working
I do have MBS here, very often on customer sites as well - but most of my work is on a desktop machine, where option-escape is not necessary, not ‘natural’…
I still take it as an issue - there are ‘elements’ in filemaker where a ‘cancel’ (escape…) shows a dialog before performing…
I have found blogs/forum-entries from other environments where users have the same problem with the tb-escape. So there is an issue with the software, but also an issue with a key that does something that could result in a loss, without any haptic, without any ‘feel’ (but was not this way for years)
(There must be a lot of complaints, since Apple changes this behavior)
Indeed, it’s all about incremental improvement. Maybe we’ll get some relief at some point, but until then we’ll just have find the least annoying solution.
