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Old 01-10-2020, 08:19 AM   #1
synkrotron
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Default TCP Folder Representation

Yes, I know, I created a similar post recently, but that was for the MCP. This one is mainly for the TCP although I will update what I am doing with the MCP also.

Thing is, it is only while I have been developing my own theme that I have grown to dislike what I have become used to with the V5 default theme, and the V6 default theme isn’t much better. And when I say “dislike,” it isn’t a strong dislike… More sort of a 2 on a scale of 1 to 10.

My first attempt at something “different” was okay but I decided that I didn’t like that either, so I have been working on something else.

Previously I had this for the MCP:-



And compact:-




And this is how the TCP looked:-



Although I liked the button images at first, during overhauling my theme I fell out of love with them.

I don’t like how they are located either side of the white divider line (which is part of the IDX image).

And it was bugging me more and more that they are so unlike what I use for the MCP.

Back to the drawing board then…

It took a couple of hours of head scratching, trying ideas and images but I think I am happy with this:-



I have used the same idea I used for the MCP which is a sort of angle bracket which goes to define the extent of the folder. So the first folder in the example above, Choir, shows the angle bracket at the top.

At the bottom of that folder is a little green folder symbol. That is a reminder that Choir is a folder and it also serves as the button to change the folder state of a track.

Male Voice is also a folder, so, it too has the angle bracket at the top and the little green folder symbol. And by its indent you can see that it is in the Choir folder.

The next track, Male Choir, is a track, not a folder, and you can see it is in a folder because of its indent. Also, the little folder symbol is now a dark grey colour which indicates that it is not a folder.

After Male Choir there is a Male Leads folder. Again, there is the angle bracket symbol at the top and green folder at the bottom.

Inside the Male Leads folder there are two more tracks, Male Lead 1 and Male Lead 2. Male Lead 2 is the last track in the Male Leads folder and so the folder symbol at the bottom has been replaced by an angle bracket which indicates the extent of Male Leads folder.

Following that is a Female Voice section which follows the same set up as the Male Voice section.

Going back to the top of the TCP, clicking on the angle bracket in the Choir folder takes all its children down to the next level of compaction, “small,” and a different graphic appears at the bottom of the Choir folder:-



As you can see, it is a slightly smaller angle bracket. The green folder symbol is still visible even though the angle bracket and folder are different images.

Clicking on the top angle bracket again compacts its children to the last level, “tiny.” Because I have set the supercollapsed track height to zero, the children totally disappear:-



Now the angle bracket at the bottom is the same as the one at the top. This indicates that the folder is totally compacted. The green folder symbol still there as a reminder that Choir is a folder.

So that is the TCP.

I also made some tweaks to the MCP folder images:-



I have dropped the little white arrows that pointed to the right or down. I felt they didn’t help. I wanted the angle bracket in the MCP to look around the same as the one in the TCP and getting rid of those arrows enabled me to do that.

I then added a green folder symbol, similar to the TCP, and I think this helps to reinforce that the track is a folder.

The last tracks in each folder has the angle bracket facing the other way and therefore closes the folders.

The following screenshot show the Male Leads and Female Leads folders compacted:-




One of the slightly confusing "pitfalls" of the above, which also exists in all the default themes, is that, depending on your track layout and use of folders and nested folders, the bracket analogy sort of falls down. Normally, if you had five opening brackets in an equation, you would also have five closing brackets.

That said, the example I have used here, with up to three nested folders, is not representative of how I work. I can't remember the last time that I nested folders at all.


Anyway, I am sure there will be issues so I now have to spend some time in an actual project to make sure this scheme works…

Thank you for getting this far


cheers

andy
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