>>V4 : Theme 15 Jan Discussion - Read First Post

[politcat]

Originally Posted by not relevant

@those who argue this theme is too bright:

If you're working in a dark environment and you find your screen too bright, you do have the option of adjusting the brightness control.

it's not an environment thing and even if it was it's a hassle messing with the monitor every time you use Reaper

the v3 theme is a good balance between too light and too dark and the contrast is nearly perfect. this alpha29 is not

[norbury brook]

I've calibrated my monitors and they're fine in ALL the programs I use,therefore it would seem that if a reaper theme/element is too bright in comparison to everything else, it's not a problem with my monitors


MC

[karl]

Originally Posted by norbury brook

does anyone else agree that with these light mixer themes, making the selected track darker would be a better way of highlighting it?

Originally Posted by bblue

Uh, no. It's counter-intuitive.

If something like that is being considered, the theme is just too damned bright!

I assume you're discussing the TCPs and MCPs? I think it's a bit of an unreasonable assessment to say themes must be dark because that's the only way to build around the concept of highlighted tracks being brighter. It's back-to-front designing I think and the wrong starting point.

If 'going darker' is counter intuitive (and I'm inclined to agree), then a different solution to highlighting tracks is required. Borders on selected panels or a completely different colour springs to mind. Vegas and ACID do the latter, and many custom REAPER themes have done the former with great effect.

You CAN have bright themes that have effective ways of highlighting tracks.

[ubergod]

I'm not sure if this belong here or if it's non-theme related (I seem to recall being to set these somewhere though)

The font on the virtual keyboard is very small, making it hard to see what keys go with what notes. You have to resize it to very large height in order to properly read it. Is there any reason why it can't be bigger at smaller height levels?

[BenK-msx]

Originally Posted by White Tie

Here's where we'll go:

• no mention of monitor button

any word on whether the monitor button will get closer to the arm for most heights ?

btw i like the large transport for certain scenarios, big screens, live/laptop situations. perhaps keep but not for the default?

i'd like emphasis on mute & solo, bit clearer to spot and hit with mouse (a touch small at the mo)

also someone needs to get the cockos chaps to kill the useless space created with docked stuff etc. before themeteam start using more of it!! inexplicable ~10px gaps strips all over the place, non-hideable docker tabs etc.

you could build a quaint cottage on the area of land being wasted at the moment if you added it up.

[airon]

Originally Posted by BenK-msx

any word on whether the monitor button will get closer to the arm for most heights ?

btw i like the large transport for certain scenarios, big screens, live/laptop situations. perhaps keep but not for the default?

i'd like emphasis on mute & solo, bit clearer to spot and hit with mouse (a touch small at the mo)

I was trying to use mute and solo a bit more often today, and the smaller size does have consequences. So far that can also be attributed to routine, which the v3 theme has been part of for so long.

also someone needs to get the cockos chaps to kill the useless space created with docked stuff etc. before themeteam start using more of it!! inexplicable ~10px gaps strips all over the place, non-hideable docker tabs etc.

you could build a quaint cottage on the area of land being wasted at the moment if you added it up.

Now that I'll sign with bells on.

That belongs in the Multiple Dockers : description / discussion thread, so I've posted there on that issue.

[jimmer]

alright. i have read this thread and made notes. i have used the theme for several projects and made notes. thus, this is basically a list and many things have already been said. but as white tie has mentioned if we don't speak up things may be axed that we like, and things that we don't may stay, so here goes....



likes--------------------------------------------------

. recessed dark grey area for inserts sends, etc in mixer window

. location of fx button (not completely sold on I/O)

. the bypass button above the fx button being part of the dark grey area

. tiny meters in tiny child tracks. AWESOME!

. width ratio of meters to faders - thought i would want meters wider, not the case.

. meters to left of faders with faders in middle of panel

. big transport buttons (sooo nice)

. MCP color scheme (including the light grey phase and monitor buttons) - awesome. totally subdued and nothing gets in the way, but when you are looking for something it pops out very quickly. scannable and readable.

. ******the "nothing's here unless it's active" thing that's going on all across the theme******



dislikes------------------------------------------------------------------

. the previous alphas. this is much nicer

. the arrows displaying state above i/o (completely non-intuitive to me)

. automation button - doesn't look like it will open a menu - looks toggle-able, like the monitoring and polarity buttons above it

. in the TCP - location of the arm button (i liked when it was at the far left - like v3)

. light background in ruler/arrange (agree with making it darker)

. track selection color is too subtle

. how horizontally small the meters are on the TCP (kinda wish they weren't part of the nametag area.)





not sure about (don't like, but not completely against if improved somehow.)
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

arrows as folder indicators (arrows don't make me think "folder")

pan knobs (very inefficient use of space)

i miss the integration of the record arm button and meter

placements of all buttons in TCP (always searching for buttons, for some reason the MCP is so much more intuitive)





also - how do you find the large transport layout? - would love to try it, but for the life of me i cant find it!

[LeBeginner]

I've just installed the alpha30a version... the new is wonderful.... Please, don't change it, it's the best you've ever made... !!!

Great Job guys !!! I can't stand waiting for the REAPER 4.0 release to buy it !!!!

[Document02]

I still find the TCP background way too bright when working in low-lit environements (or long hours during nightime).

MCP works great this way (but width contro seems to have disapeared).

Nitpick on MCP: arrow for sends should point up instead of down (down being receives)

[d. gauss]

please, please, please, can the pans be moved back to above the faders....

[bblue]

Originally Posted by d. gauss

please, please, please, can the pans be moved back to above the faders....

Absolutely, they need to be in your immediate work area. Not out yonder in left ... er, south field.

--Bill

[Document02]

TCP dislike: lost room in this configuration, envelopes controls should be aligned with FX (see pic attached)

[politcat]

Originally Posted by jimmer

likes--------------------------------------------------

. the bypass button above the fx button being part of the dark grey area

so you like something that's so dark it's illegible?

[jimmer]

Originally Posted by politcat

so you like something that's so dark it's illegible?

basically, yeah.

i don't need to see a bypass button until i need to activate it. once you know what it is, you know what it is and whether it is legible or not is irrelevant. it doesn't even NEED to say bypass on it to be functional.

why clutter the interface with an extra button when i don't need any type of visual indicator for when it is in it's normal state (black or light green)? it's only important to notice when it's engaged (red).

it's like a low fuel light in a car. i don't need to see a light when i'm not low on fuel - only when i am.

[Dstruct]

I don't know but the current theme (4.0alpha35) is still ugly for me. Even worse than the theme in the older alphas. Now the current theme even looks like it uses OS Windows frames somehow (although it doesn't).



Too gray and missing contrast.


Vertically centered faders in the TCP look weird too:

-> maximize a track

Result: Fader at middle of the TCP
Expected: Fader at top (as in older themes)

[Bevosss]

The current theme (alpha35a) isn't too shabby imo, most of the theme is ok to look at now, and importantly, colored track labels look quite good, being really ugly before I thought. Nice direction!

I still think the arrange view is quite dull and drab to look at. I don't mind the selected items color, but the non-selected item is just depressing.

Why do the items have to be so drab? I mean I am a Paula fan, so obviously I like a shiny blue item which I find uplifting and non-fatigueing, but couldn't there be a nice matching color with a sheen for items? Just my $0.02 but I find looking at grey items really depressing and very windows 95-esque, and harder to differentiate imo.

I also much prefer a smoky grey color (like my paula version) for the arrange window, it's a better class of grey to look at imo, and not drab by any means.

On a side note, the hit-point for setting recording inputs (single-click) is super-small here, just the immediate area underneath the tcp track level text...not very intuitive to find either.

No offence intended, I actually like this one better...

[airon]

Originally Posted by Bevosss

The current theme (alpha35a) isn't too shabby imo, most of the theme is ok to look at now, and importantly, colored track labels look quite good, being really ugly before I thought. Nice direction!

I still think the arrange view is quite dull and drab to look at. I don't mind the selected items color, but the non-selected item is just depressing.

Why do the items have to be so drab? I mean I am a Paula fan, so obviously I like a shiny blue item which I find uplifting and non-fatigueing, but couldn't there be a nice matching color with a sheen for items? Just my $0.02 but I find looking at grey items really depressing and very windows 95-esque, and harder to differentiate imo.

They're all uncoloured by default. They look much better on coloured tracks. It's also necessary to have the background and peaks of items darker in an unselected state, so the idea to light them up in a selected state is actually viable. If there' lit up, you've got nowhere to go.

Yes it can be done in a different way, but there aren't a lot of ways so far. It all depends on how you want to highlight your selections, and this is where Reaper has sort of fallen on its ass so far. How many really good implementations are there in all the themes we know ?

Ok, here's a shot of the over five year old Protools 7.3:



Here's a shot of the not so old Protools 9.01 on how a selected item and areas look.

I also much prefer a smoky grey color (like my paula version) for the arrange window, it's a better class of grey to look at imo, and not drab by any means.

On a side note, the hit-point for setting recording inputs (single-click) is super-small here, just the immediate area underneath the tcp track level text...not very intuitive to find either.

No offence intended, I actually like this one better...

[airon]

To add to this, it may seem like I'm touting Protools as the be-all-end-all, but no. The screenshots merely illustrated two ways of highlighting selections.

The old Protools version does this by inversion and colour change. The peaks get an unselected items background colour of a different hue and the background is always black on selections.

The new Protools version does something more subtle.

The selections carry an inverted colourscheme entirely derived from the items unselected colours, though slightly altered. The selected peaks have the colour of the unselected items background with a slightly increased saturation and lowered value(brightness). The selected background uses the unselected peak colour with a much lower saturation and lower value(brightness).

The arrangement background is lowered by 15 units of value(brightness) where selections are made, though that is indeed what area selections would be if/when that is implemented. Personally I like the softer approach of Protools 9 a little more than that of either Reaper or Protools 7. It probably costs less in CPU as well than all the blending crap and extra background graphics. If you don't have anything better, this could be a good approach for Reaper too, i.e. rules that are a little simpler but achieve more effective results.

What do you folks think ? Are item colours that are derived from other colours than their own a good idea to try in Reaper ?

[Mike Stop Continues]

Originally Posted by airon

To add to this, it may seem like I'm touting Protools as the be-all-end-all, but no. The screenshots merely illustrated two ways of highlighting selections.

What do you folks think ? Are item colours that are derived from other colours than their own a good idea to try in Reaper ?

I would NOT want my items changing color when selected. I prefer the change of tint like in your second protools picture, which we can already do with REAPER now... The whole reason for coloring is to make things easy for our brain. I would want to keep that.

[airon]

Originally Posted by Mike Stop Continues

I would NOT want my items changing color when selected. I prefer the change of tint like in your second protools picture, which we can already do with REAPER now... The whole reason for coloring is to make things easy for our brain. I would want to keep that.

That's just the thing. Reaper cannot do that right now. It cannot swap colours of the peak and background for example. They can only be processed the same way. You may think that the item background image only needs to have a certain colour, but then all you get is the background changing, and not the peak.

The time selection is like a veil, which is what you see in what happens to the background in the Protools 9 shot, and the same happend to the background of the item, but the peaks have to be something completely different. The same process that colours the arrangement background, and/or the item background will not colour the peaks the any of the Protools shots shows.

[Mike Stop Continues]

Originally Posted by airon

That's just the thing. Reaper cannot do that right now. It cannot swap colours of the peak and background for example. They can only be processed the same way. You may think that the item background image only needs to have a certain colour, but then all you get is the background changing, and not the peak.

The time selection is like a veil, which is what you see in what happens to the background in the Protools 9 shot, and the same happend to the background of the item, but the peaks have to be something completely different. The same process that colours the arrangement background, and/or the item background will not colour the peaks the any of the Protools shots shows.

Now I see the difference, you're talking about time selection, not item selection.

For item selection, it can be done:

Half of the solution is to have two media item backgrounds -- one light and one dark -- and the other part of the solution is to adjust the media peak colors in the Preferences...->Color Themes... -- and adjust selected vs unselected colors.

For time selection, it gets a little harder:

The main difference is that in protools (and some other daws), time selection automatically includes the parts of the media clips within the zone and doesn't include all tracks. In REAPER, this isn't really the case. The reason is that in REAPER, time selection really only selects time. It shouldn't look like it has an altering effect on your media because it doesn't.

I know I didn't explain that great, so it's up to you to understand.

[JsPerl]

This is a fantastic looking theme so far. Dumb question (being that everyone else seems to have figured it out except me): where do I download it?

Thanks for all this hard work!

[run, megalodon]

where do I download it?

This is the default theme for the v4 alphas. If you don't have it already, you can download the latest alpha by going through here: http://forum.cockos.com/showthread.php?t=22836 but know that it may not be completely stable.

[JsPerl]

Ok, thanks!

[Tomm]

A couple nit-picks. This is sing v4.0alpha38. I believe the first one isn't a theme related issue (more likely an internal one) but I really don't know:

The FX hover state of the top button does not deactivate when moving upwards into the "Input Effects" button:

https://stash.reaper.fm/7872/hover.gif


Resizing the mixer fader section when window is high leads to overlapping buttons:

https://stash.reaper.fm/7873/mixer.gif

[musicbynumbers]

This is in no way meant to sound like I know anything about theming because I really really appreciate how hard it is and I don't intend to use the default theme anyway but surely the old theme below had a lot more info and was easy to navigate than the latest version? I don't recall why it was so drastically changed?

I swear I'm not saying this vindictively I really think that the first theme had a lot more solidness in it's ability to convey what is doing what. Feel free to ignore this obviously and I won't mention it again but everytime I see the new theme (for what ever reason) I can't help this niggle of "what was broken"?

[jdutaillis]

Originally Posted by musicbynumbers

This is in no way meant to sound like I know anything about theming because I really really appreciate how hard it is and I don't intend to use the default theme anyway but surely the old theme below had a lot more info and was easy to navigate than the latest version? I don't recall why it was so drastically changed?

I swear I'm not saying this vindictively I really think that the first theme had a lot more solidness in it's ability to convey what is doing what. Feel free to ignore this obviously and I won't mention it again but everytime I see the new theme (for what ever reason) I can't help this niggle of "what was broken"?

+1

I think the problem everyone had with it was the amount of space it took up to convey this info. Personally I loved it too!

In saying that, the current default has really grown on me as well. I love the work WT does and trust him completely. Can't wait to see the finished V4 theme!

PS. Any update on it coming soon WT?

[Some Guy]

love the transport, perfect to me. something i really dislike though is that green on the fx button and loop/playback.

something more objective - reading marker names with default settings is not possible, the text is virtually the same colour as the background.

[White Tie]

Yeah I liked that theme too.

Locking this, see New thread.