Reaplugs GUI Concept

[G-Sun]

Looks very good :thumbsup:

[jazztom]

Originally Posted by White Tie

No one's making that argument. You're saying you don't buy an argument that you yourself just invented simply to support a mean spirited conclusion. Which is precisely the kind of reason these threads never go anywhere.

I remember that White Tie at least cited this argument in another thread:

We've done this thread many times. Its not seen as worthwhile to create, and maintain, the complexity in the reaPlugs that would allow them to have designed UIs. You disagree and so do I. Its not up to us. Maybe this will change. Maybe it won't. Maybe you don't agree its complex, maybe you're qualified to make that judgement, maybe you're not, its still not up to us.

Anyway, repeat all of that for about 20 pages still it all splutters out, and then we'll start it all again in a couple of years, see you then!

Quote:
Originally Posted by krahosk View Post
They can't do GUIs like plugin alliance because they aren't graphic designers and it isn't their priority.
Quote:
Originally Posted by krahosk View Post
They're amazingly talented and hard working to compete with other DAW companies that hire whole slews of programmers and graphic designers.
You've got this completely backwards; other DAWs just use a third part graphics framework. Reaper's stability, bug fix responsiveness, small size and small resource footprint come from many reasons, and one of them is that it doesn't.
__________________
The House of White Tie

[White Tie]

Originally Posted by jazztom

I remember that White Tie at least cited this argument in another thread:

That's not what I said. I said the complexity is not, as I see it, seen as worthwhile, which is true. To spin that into either justin and schwa are too inept to deal with the complexity, or that they don't care, is a fabrication, patently false, demonstrably not what I said and a perfect encapsulation of why these threads never go anywhere.

[Phazma]

The existence of these threads is important tough because it shows that there are plenty users interested in such improvements and willing to contribute with ideas and in some cases even work. Wether Justin and Schwa will at some point be interested in tackling the issue is up to them, but I see no problem in bringing this up regularly, if it wasn’t for some people who are unable to discuss in a civilized manner.

[Klangfarben]

Originally Posted by White Tie

No one's making that argument. You're saying you don't buy an argument that you yourself just invented simply to support a mean spirited conclusion. Which is precisely the kind of reason these threads never go anywhere.

There was nothing remotely mean spirited that ED said or implied. And this thread is going somewhere. There have been several good suggestions. Perhaps it isn't ED that is the one inventing things...

[sai'ke]

These are very pretty mock-ups. The eq one reminds me a lot of the fabfilter eq.
I really like how the Reaverb one is set up, with the modules. I could imagine that to be very nice to use (although very painful to implement ).

I personally don't mind the current reaplug UI/UX; although I do have to say that they don't look that good in that screenshot Zeno showed. I'm glad the labels don't turn so weird on my end.

The thing with GUI is that implementing them is a massive time sink.

A nice looking UI with a lot of customized controls for an effect can easily take up 90% of the development time, if not more. They're also hard to test and maintain.

While I can't speak for other developers, I myself don't find UI work particularly fun. Especially not if you're essentially implementing a set design and have no more freedom for experimentation at that point.

[White Tie]

Originally Posted by Klangfarben

There was nothing remotely mean spirited that ED said or implied.

Perhaps you missed it:

Originally Posted by EvilDragon

They just don't seem to care about ergonomics at all, sadly.

Either what I said is correct, in which case it doesn't matter because its not going to happen, or what he said is correct, in which case it still doesn't matter because its not going to happen. Oh, and his way he gets to have a jab at the devs for some inexplicable reason.

[Klangfarben]

Originally Posted by White Tie

Either what I said is correct, in which case it doesn't matter because its not going to happen, or what he said is correct, in which case it still doesn't matter because its not going to happen. Oh, and his way he gets to have a jab at the devs for some inexplicable reason.

Nope didn't miss it. But his statement wasn't a jab. His statement was an accurate one and he was simply relaying his disappointment with that.

Instead of you reading into the psychology of everyone's posts, maybe try and stay on target. There are a lot of positive posts here with some good suggestions, as well as the very well done proof-of-concept from OP. I get it, you don't think it's going to happen and you don't see anything constructive or positive coming from discussions like this. The great news is you are of course entitled to your opinion. However, since we've already heard it I don't think it needs to be reiterated.

[White Tie]

Originally Posted by Klangfarben

I get it, you don't think it's going to happen and you don't see anything constructive or positive coming from discussions like this.

That's the very opposite of what I'm saying, I can't tell if you're intentionally misunderstanding me. What do you feel your contribution is here?

These mockups and discussions are always fun, and I encourage them wholeheartedly. Right up to the moment people start turning them into something nasty, and even then the only thing I am objecting to is the nastiness.

[Klangfarben]

Originally Posted by White Tie

These mockups and discussions are always fun, and I encourage them wholeheartedly. Right up to the moment people start turning them into something nasty, and even then the only thing I am objecting to is the nastiness.

I think the issue for me WT, is that you actually seem to do the opposite. Which is whenever one of these discussions come up you seem to be the buzzkill and mention how it's not going to happen or that none of these discussions are ever useful. That just doesn't feel particularly constructive to me.

Especially as a representative of Cockos here on the forums and someone employed by them and in close communication, I think a better response instead of trying to seek out malfeasance, would be something more along the lines of this:

"Hey guys, love the discussion. Some great work here and some great ideas. Just wanted to say that after discussion with the developers, they just don't have the resources to tackle this right now. But please keep the ideas coming as that may change in the future."

P.S. Don't worry, I won't take any offense at any of your jabs towards me

[White Tie]

You are asking for the QA department brush-off pablum? 99% of the time that means nothing more than "please feel that you have been listened to, I have passed on your comments to the bin."

I have not discussed this with the developers. I do not speak for the developers; they are perfectly capable of doing that themselves. If the things I say are a buzzkill, I can see why that's a bummer, but would you not prefer to be informed? There are a million ways for everyone to help, there are a million things that can be designed, if the ReaPlugs aren't one of them then effort can either be squandered, or it can be redirected towards something constructive. And me saying how is me being constructive, as best I can.

Either way, I don't think its even necessary for these discussions to have a purpose or some kind of conclusion, if they are fun. And nastiness free.

[Phazma]

Originally Posted by White Tie

These mockups and discussions are always fun, and I encourage them wholeheartedly. Right up to the moment people start turning them into something nasty, and even then the only thing I am objecting to is the nastiness.

If that is your opinion then I agree fully with you. But let me tell you that it didn’t come over like that. While there has been no nastieness at all in this thread, the first response you gave was how the last thread related to this didn’t go anywhere and got nasty. That doesn’t sound like a response that encourages this type of topic but rather sounds like a warning about how dicussing this is more likely to have a negative outcome than a positive one. I am not saying this is what you meant but rather how I (and probably many others) understood your words. If you were supportive of this type of discussion I would have expected you to either share your opinion or to just link to the other thread (to avoid having to rewrite everything) without neccessarily pointing out the nastieness. Or if you don’t feel like adding anything to the discussion you could have simply let it happen (and keep an eye to see if it gets nasty) without being a “party pooper” as you described yourself and entering the thread with a discouraging comment.

[White Tie]

Originally Posted by Phazma

If you were supportive of this type of discussion I would have expected you to either share your opinion or to just link to the other thread (to avoid having to rewrite everything) without neccessarily pointing out the nastieness.

I don't understand your reasoning here, but I will amend my post if you think it will help.

[airon]

That's some very interesting concept work, that also looks fairly simple.

The GUI elements are basic, yet it would require a new library. Since I'm no expert on coding, that's about as far as I am willing to speculate.

Fabfilter Pro-C2 is really easy to use, and it relies mostly on knobs for the most used parameters, and sliders that I find more readable than our sliders on ReaPlugins/JS plugins. Searching is down to a minimum.

A GUI that relies mostly on knobs and has far too many stacked in a way that does not make me learn the plugin well is Aether. Even Stratus is confusing that way, yet I use it every day as well. But it could be more usable, at the beginning.

Would be nice to have a more ergonimic GUI, even in a simpler form. With a GUI library that consists of just a few elements, that may not be so difficult. Plenty of good designers here that have done stuff in that department. You give them a palette and let them paint until it works well.

One more good example I found instantly useable is a hardware copy/extension, Empirical Labs "Arouser" plugin. Has a sub section here and there, but overall it's an extremely usable plugin for me.

If at any point the Cockos lads want to tackle a bit of GUI library action, a few basic controls, size and colour is most of what we'd need. One day perhaps.

Originally Posted by reznikdesign

Hi everyone. I made a GUI concept for some of the Reaper's native plugins — https://www.behance.net/gallery/1017...ins-concept%29.

I'm sharing the figma source file (free to copy/modify). You can explore it and maybe use as a library for your own projects: https://www.figma.com/community/file...lugs-(vst-GUI)

I'm open to any feedback and comments. Also if you're working on a theme, extension or a plugin and you need a designer's sight, feel free to drop me a message.

[ANDYZ]

Originally Posted by reznikdesign

Hi everyone. I made a GUI concept for some of the Reaper's native plugins —

The GUIs are beautiful and ergonomic. But there's one thing that's bugging me - fader/slider caps. What you designed is a thin cap suitable for human fingers, but not very usable to grab it by the mouse cursor.


Fader caps in a plugin UI should be more square to have bigger footprint to hit and grab it by the mouse. Thin caps serve nothing.

[reznikdesign]

Originally Posted by ANDYZ

The GUIs are beautiful and ergonomic. But there's one thing that's bugging me - fader/slider caps. What you designed is a thin cap suitable for human fingers, but not very usable to grab it by the mouse cursor.


Fader caps in a plugin UI should be more square to have bigger footprint to hit and grab it by the mouse. Thin caps serve nothing.

Thanks! Regarding the caps I had 2 ideas: to make it actually big or to make it small with large click area (like transparent padding basically). I've picked the second one but yeah, it may need some improvements.

[ertugrulgul]

If they wouldn't add this gui, I will cut my child.

[vitalker]

Originally Posted by ertugrulgul

If they wouldn't add this gui, I will cut my child.

You are a bad parent.

[X-Raym]

@reznikdesign
and what about the most infamous unthemable reaper window: the FX chain window ?😅

[reznikdesign]

Originally Posted by X-Raym

@reznikdesign
and what about the most infamous unthemable reaper window: the FX chain window ?😅

Coming in next updates. There's a lot to fix in Reaper's design so stay tuned:-)

[Chrome Gadget]

Originally Posted by reznikdesign

Coming in next updates. There's a lot to fix in Reaper's design so stay tuned:-)

This is getting me quite excited.

And those UI mock-ups are absolutely gorgeous. I love every bit of it, the little triangles in the knob, the font, the flat style with very subtle gradients. I mean really. This is looking even better than most professional plugs.

[Chrome Gadget]

I'm not a fan of animations tho. I feel like they are looking nice but this is compensated by the idea that they take ressource and make you watch and wait. Might be a personal preference as I don't like them in webpages neither except where they are really necessary to keep a cognitive track of the transformation of an object.

[BarhamVO]

Holy hell, let this person redo the entire UI for Reaper! I absolutely LOVE this. Awesome, awesome work.

😍

[lerian]

I almost feel embarrassed for having to make the next arguments for the nth time, but here i go:

Originally Posted by White Tie

Either way, I don't think its even necessary for these discussions to have a purpose or some kind of conclusion, if they are fun. And nastiness free.

With all due respect, this discussion in itself is a purpose AND a conclusion. Especially because its not a new one. Nor the only one on this matter. People in lack of an official pov start making assumptions. Some are nice, some maybe not so nice. Nobody should judge users for making these kind of assumptions in lack of an official stance. The problem is not the nature of the assumption, but the lack of communication on the matter which leads to these kind of assumptions.

The way i see it since 9 years ago, there are two kinds of reaper users: the newer ones who get excited and propose solutions, and the older ones who got tired of asking for the same things over and over again. The OP put the time and effort to make some great designs, and many people got excited because the struggle is real. Music is an art, and art requires fun, ergonomics, and a pleasant overall experience that goes beyond functionality. One doesn't exclude the other.

We are one in here. There are no users without devs, nor devs without users. Communication and consideration for each other's needs are important for the health of the relationship, just like in any marriage.

[Pink Wool]

Originally Posted by reznikdesign

Coming in next updates. There's a lot to fix in Reaper's design so stay tuned:-)

Can't wait! So who can we get you to team up with to make GUI's for the JS plugins?!

People who've done it before (atleast that I know of)

@argee @MacFizz @geraintluff


Anyone else know how the GUI implementation works in JS?


EDIT: And @sai'ke!

[White Tie]

Originally Posted by lerian

The problem is not the nature of the assumption, but the lack of communication on the matter which leads to these kind of assumptions. ... Communication and consideration for each other's needs are important for the health of the relationship

Yes I agree, this is how I see it too. However, what I think I should take away from this thread is that sometimes people want to dream, to imagine what is possible. And sometimes people want to know the unvarnished pragmatic truth. And I need to do better at recognising which time is which.

[Phazma]

Originally Posted by White Tie

Yes I agree, this is how I see it too. However, what I think I should take away from this thread is that sometimes people want to dream, to imagine what is possible. And sometimes people want to know the unvarnished pragmatic truth. And I need to do better at recognising which time is which.

This is very true, I see both tendencies in myself and lately more and more the first one. I know by now that Reaper for my needs is a far better DAW than any other offering and I won't switch. But given that so much can be customized, the few aspects that can't bother me way more and I feel that the devs really should tackle these. But the devs of course have their own opinions on whether they ever will tackle a certain issue. If threads related to such issues that bug me keep popping up it just fuels my hope that the devs will once again be reminded of "how important" these issues are and I can tell myself that I will patiently keep using Reaper as it is and bit by bit all of these issues will be solved and it will become (almost) the perfect DAW. But if the devs chimed in and said "sorry we have no plans to ever change this" it could feel a bit frustrating, knowing that if I keep using Reaper (which I will 100%), I will be stuck with these issues forever.

[Chrome Gadget]

Yeah, the forum is actually quite depressing when you look at old feature requests and the potential for improvement. I tend to forget that Reaper is already an amazing package...
There might be a better way to sort feature requests tho. I don't think this old forum is a good tool to poll opinions. I mean, there are 200+ pages threads about colors here... As a dev, I wouldn't spend that much time reading all of this just for the sake of productivity on fixes. Also the negativity can be unbearable.
I'm grateful for what Cockos did to the DAW world and grateful for the community of talented people.

[VVV]

Originally Posted by X-Raym

@reznikdesign
and what about the most infamous unthemable reaper window: the FX chain window ?��

@White tie, talking about GUI, I saw that Razor Edit have an animated selection displayed. I really like it because it catch the eye very quickly.

would it be feasible to make animation for other parts of the GUI, for instance loop selection in the ruler, item selected ect...?? Would be awesome and ergonomic.

[Stevie]

This is awesome
I was amazed how fit it to current Reaper theme and concept, i'm huge fan of this work, thank you, i hope one day we will see this on the screen of DAW

[12345678]

not going to happen..

[iscaryoth]

I've been fiddling with the Exciter, just to see how easily this could be implemented in jsfx, and it turns out that some of this is doable. I was not aiming to be pixel perfect, but on my screen this looks pretty close. I'm not sure about the exact fonts or how should fallback be handled in jsfx, but if anybody wants to take a look, then the code can be found under https://github.com/iscaryoth/jsfx. Happy to hear your comments how I botched it

[Chimpscookie]

Originally Posted by ertugrulgul

If they wouldn't add this gui, I will cut my child.

If they would add this GUI, I will cut my child.

[BartR]

+1?
No
+1000000

It will be great if finally plugins are coming with a more sex-appeal AND more ergonomic outfit.

At the present time, they still stitched in the stone age.

[X-Raym]

@iscaryoth


Nice :P


There could be a minimum size limit though to not break the GUI


and why not keep extending knobs size so they always fills the avalaible space ?








BTW it has no audio effect on my side, maybe it has to be place right next to the original JSFX ?

[iscaryoth]

@X-Raym, thanks for the comments. I'll explore both of these, as I've been focusing mostly on getting grips on the UI and it looks like I may have accidentally broken something. I'll look into the resizing as it's a fair point.

EDIT: I looked into the audio part, and it was working, although I've learned that REAPER is not 'watching' the variables to fire @slider block, so I've pushed an update that actually does this. I'll work on resizing at some later point.

[gxray]

Originally Posted by iscaryoth

@X-Raym, thanks for the comments. I'll explore both of these, as I've been focusing mostly on getting grips on the UI and it looks like I may have accidentally broken something. I'll look into the resizing as it's a fair point.

EDIT: I looked into the audio part, and it was working, although I've learned that REAPER is not 'watching' the variables to fire @slider block, so I've pushed an update that actually does this. I'll work on resizing at some later point.

That looks really awesome, great work! =D

[iscaryoth]

@gxray: Thank you. I've fiddled a little bit more to replace the fixed sizes with ones defined relatively to the window size; oh, and the resizing should be working much better now. As a bonus I've took the 50HzKicker and applied some small changes... and it looks like it's working.

[Pink Wool]

Now that's what I'm talking about! That's awesome! Can't wait to test this out!

[maralatho]

Originally Posted by richie43

They may improve the eye-candy aspects, but how would new skins improve functionality? The skins don't offer any functions that are not already there. It's like changing colors on your car...The engine won't act any differently.

I think it would make them more enjoyable to use, and that, in turn, would make people use them more.