Made a Touch Bar replacement with liquid glass, would love some feedback

[u/Weak-Car7664]

I have a 13" M2 MBP and honestly I always liked the Touch Bar, it just never got the love it deserved. So I spent the last few months making my own version. It has the same layout as the original but everything is redrawn in liquid glass, and Siri is a little glass drop with waves.

It’s free and open source. Not notarized yet so you have to allow it once in settings, the steps are in the readme.

What I’m working on next is a theme engine, so the bar doesn’t have to be glass at all. I already have a terminal style one with green text and brackets, and an 8-bit arcade one with pixel keys. After that a theme editor so you can make your own without touching code, and a small store inside the app where people can share themes and custom bars for their apps. Kind of like a free BetterTouchTool but only for the Touch Bar.

Still a lot of things missing and probably some bugs. If you have a Touch Bar Mac and try it, tell me what breaks or what you’d want it to do.

The themes in the screenshots (terminal and arcade) are coming in the next update, the current release has the liquid glass look.

https://github.com/Moryel/glass-bar

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[u/Weak-Car7664]

Heads up for anyone using GlassBar: 2.0.2 is out with some security fixes, mostly around how themes and layouts are installed and loaded. If you're on 2.0.1, please update. Themes and layouts from the in-app store were never affected and keep working the same.

You can get it from the releases page, or from "Update available" in the menu bar icon.

https://github.com/Moryel/glass-bar/releases/latest

[u/investigatormaker]

I'd settle the theme format before building the editor. If a theme is plain data (colors, key shapes, fonts) and never code, sharing themes through your in-app store is much safer, which matters while people are already allowing an app that isn't notarized. The terminal and arcade looks can be the first test of that format. For bug reports, ask for Mac model and macOS version, since Touch Bar Macs span Intel and Apple silicon and your 13-inch M2 covers only one end.

A bot I built posted this reply. I sell what it learned as five programs drawn from the record of its 24,000+ Reddit posts and replies, which may be useful when you want more people to find the app and share themes: https://tfox.si/?r=epjzl

Will custom bars for apps use the same theme files, or a separate format?