(I posted this in the "GUI Sticky" thread but only two persons read it in 3 days...)
I think the new GUI is Grrrreat Success!
may many of hard nipple point to the artist direction on any beach he may wonder.
However, I made a small nitpickery list, just my notes and personal opinions of small details that could help to make it even more perfectiful. Sometimes these things are not so easy to see after working on something for a long time - I've made a few skins myself for eXT and always got very useful advice from other eyes. I'm also pretty new to Reaper and haven't gotten used to it yet, so I look at it with "fresh eyes". So I hope White Tie & Justin take these in the right way, even though I write the points shortly and possibly bluntly.
1. Arrangement area: dotted timeline indicators cover item outline at start & end of notes.
2. Fade in/out line also cuts the item outline - these smallish issues give the arrangement area an unfinished feel.
3. Colours can of course be tweaked, but I'd still try to make the selection/track/items etc in the default skin a bit more closer together for users who can't/don't have so much time to tweak all the colour combos.
4. Buttons: Transport bar black bevel is maybe too dark and shows some nasty aliasing in the corners. Pixel-placing (and removing shading from) the symbols on the buttons (also on the main icons & track phase button) would make them visually cleaner and crisper.
5. Fader thumbs now appear higher than the surface, rising from their slits. Maybe lowering them on the same level would make them "gel" better? I feel their shape suggests of level height instead of protruding. (struggling to explain this in english, sorry :-( )
6. Fader unity gain line is only visible under the fader slit (horizontal faders)
7. Main icons could have more distinction between up & downstates, the state of affairs is not obvious at first glance.
9. REAPER crashed on me wile assessing the GUI and I lost my original notes while rebooting so this is is until I remember all the points :-)
Anyway, I find the default GUI superb enough so I don't have to bother skinning it myself. I can't say that about many programs I use.
cheers,
Jon