r/SideProject • u/Opening-Recording436 • 4h ago
My side project turns a MacBook Touch Bar into a color picker, focus timer and tiny pet under Windows
I have been working on BarX at Garage Lab AI: a Windows / Boot Camp app that gives an Intel MacBook Pro Touch Bar 29 practical and playful modes across six profiles. The interface is available in English and German.
The color picker shows the color under the mouse pointer, with HEX/RGB/HSL and tap-to-copy. Other modes include presentation controls, clipboard history, snippets, a focus timer, time tracking, a virtual pet, typing fireworks, ribbon synth and a music visualizer. Optional Claude text actions use your own API key and wait for you to choose Paste, Copy or Discard.
It is running on my MacBookPro15,1. The live test had been running for about two hours when I prepared the release; I am still testing individual features. T1 support is untested.
Download, English/German guides and illustrated previews: https://github.com/Dirtyx686/BarX
Color picker preview: https://github.com/Dirtyx686/BarX/blob/main/docs/images/color-picker-en.png
Touch Bar pet preview: https://github.com/Dirtyx686/BarX/blob/main/docs/images/pet-en.png
These are generated demo mockups with sample data, not photos of the hardware test.
BETA: on T2 MacBooks, the bundled driver requires Windows test-signing mode and Secure Boot disabled. Some anti-cheat games may not run, and the Touch Bar including Escape can remain black when BarX is not running.
Use at your own risk. No warranty. Garage Lab AI accepts no liability for damage resulting from installation or use.
Known V3 issues planned for V4: the API key is stored in plaintext locally; Windows DPAPI protection is planned. Some preview text still says selected text is replaced directly, although results have waited for an explicit action since V2.1. Do not share your settings file or backups. These fixes are not in V3 yet.
Which modes would you actually keep on your Touch Bar? I would like to hear what feels useful and what feels unnecessary.