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Old 03-08-2014, 10:53 AM   #1
cubic13
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Default Piolit : yet, another 'Cubase like' theme...

Hi, all

An other one again, you could say, and from a Reaper newbie... Well, making music with Cubase for more than ten years leaves marks, I guess. As I wanted something approaching it, I managed to get something useful, at least for me. Doing this, I also learned a lot about how Reaper is actually working. It's still at an unachieved state, somehow, but well... Here it is :

https://stash.reaper.fm/theme/1409/Piolit.zip
Theme no longer available : see here for its successor...

Now, few observations that are also sources of frustration at my present state of knowledge of Reaper :

1) I would really like to be able to color the TCP and MCP trackidx/folder area (and only this one) accordingly to the choosed track color. Didn't find the way to do so, from which, I had to set in the hard way different layouts with choosed background colors to achieve what I wanted. So, if someone has a better solution... Just in case, the files involved in the different layouts can be setted in a more neutral way : there are GenericGrey*.png files added for this in the set.

2) I would also like to get rid of the horrible 0 level value mark in each of the sendlist slots, which appears as a vertical line in the send name area. Trying to get rid of any knob here, I more or less succeeded but couldn't find a way to make it invisible, after countless attempts tweaking the mcp_sendlist_meter.png file. Something has to be done to be able to use the sendlist slots without any knob in the way.

3) I think that we are really in need of a guide to make efficient theming of the toolbars. As an example, only one of the three files involved in the ripple editing command are displayed in the 'Change icons' list. This one works, but doesn't reflect the actual state of the command. So, using efficiently toolbar icons with a three states toggle command remains a mystery to me...

4) In the theme editor, there are things missing, such as independent choices of colors for different MIDI editor parts, in example. How comes that the 'MIDI editor ruler background' affects also the background of several other parts, such as the controller lanes ? Beside this, the terminology used in the theme editor is anything but clear : I spent too much time trying to figure which setting affect what part of the UI.

Now back to music... Just hope that this theme will be useful for some of you as well. Feel free to post suggestions or report back any issue.


EDIT (12th november 2014) - A second version with a fixed size of the mcp panel can be found here : https://stash.reaper.fm/theme/1497/PiolitFM.zip.
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Old 03-08-2014, 03:41 PM   #2
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nice work on the theme

I feel for your frustration with certain things...

On the sendlist knobs, I messed around with that way long ago, but with mixed results...

I could never really get rid of the 'knob' area and make it work perfectly as just a slider, but ... I did make the knob parts all set to a transparency of 1% in photoshop, which essentially makes them invisible... you still have to drag in that area to make it work. I also tried to make the line that shows how much the send is have a red overflow at the far right hand end [where the knob is] and it worked OK ..BUT only on my own screen size.

When used on other systems it did not work for krap. So I gave up on that.

I sort of started out from the same mind as you, wanted an older cubase type theme just out of habit. But it eventually became it's own thing as cubase faded from my memory... Nowadays, I don't even think about cubase anymore.
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Old 03-09-2014, 01:50 AM   #3
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Hi, hopi, and thanks for chiming in...

About the vertical line, yes, you just confirm that, as it is presently, it's not designed for a use of the send list without knobs. Too bad, but I still perfer without them : we have already too little space for the label so, putting a knob in a such restricted area seems a nonsense to me, especially when theming a narrow view of the strips. Well...

Now, About Cubase, I'm leaving the ship and also begin to slowly forget it. Explaining why in depth would probably take too much place : let's say that the UI regressions, the half-baked features piling up with years (Generic remote, ASIO guard, RCE...), the ever increasing amount of resources used with each new versions, the broken support of VST 2.x (FXP/FXB, MediaBay...) and the brand new and clunky MixConsole have a lot to do in it. This with Steiny forums, all the fanboys in it jumping on you each time you talk about the issues left and the arrogance of the mods with their heavy censorship decided me to buy the Reaper licence. Got fed up, at a point...

So, after three months of use, I'm really beginning to like all the Reaper features, a lot of them well hidden, but efficient, IMO. Quickly seeing all the features at disposal, I thought that it was worth trying to set a familiar and easy on the eyes (for me) user environment and set a little JS tool to expand the CC range values of my old Yamaha pedal controllers which, at the end, efficiently replaces the main use that I had of the Cubase Input Transformer. From which, this theme...

Thanks again !
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Old 03-09-2014, 08:05 PM   #4
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Hi Cubic....

Hey right... I really do understand your feelings about Steiny and the gang there in general...

For many years, but many years ago, I liked Cubase better and others. Still, at that time Reaper was barely born. I gave it quick look and went back. Then a couple years later I tried it again... early version 3.x and took a deeper look. And got totally hooked by it at that time. Having a cubase 'mind set' it took a bit, but the first thing that got me was not having to create diff tracks for audio or instrument... wow.. nice.

Since that time reaper has grown soooooo much, it incredible. And as you now have seen the forums are just great.

You probably have gotten the SWS extensions, yes? If not..well..

I mention this because of reapers ability to have the floating toolbars for both the arrange and for the midi editor...

I don't really 'float' mine... I have them docked at the top. But since in them you can have icons for about any action, or script, or custom action, it allows for a DAW to be the way 'you' want it...
Much the same for being able to customize all the menus to your own wishes.

Well again, IMO, you have already contributed a very good theme..
at the same time... I will bet that over the next year you will find yourself doing things to it even further as cubase fades from your mind. So hey, I hope this dream is a better one for you.

Thanks again.
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Old 04-20-2014, 05:46 AM   #5
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A little bump...

... just to let you know that I have uploaded five updates since my first post. So, I think that I got something more or less usable now, but I would like feedback from any Cubase nostalgic...

The frustrations listed in my first post are still here, though : hope that Reaper bakers will soon be able to look at them more closely...
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Old 04-26-2014, 04:57 PM   #6
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This is another one of my favorites.

I'm still searching for a theme based on the original Cubase SX.
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Old 05-22-2014, 10:08 AM   #7
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Just a little bump, as the theme has reached its 12th update.

More than this, I had to delete the previous version from the stash as it was completely misbehaving, when I tried to update the previous version which was in the .ReaperThemeZip format to the present regular .Zip one. Sorry for this : I changed its location address in my first post accordingly.
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Old 05-22-2014, 02:47 PM   #8
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Hi Cubic,

thanks for your work. It looks good.
Used Cubase for about 15 years.
I like to switch themes once in a while.
I also like L2 BDS 4.51 theme that looks like Cubase (more overall, yours is more detailed).
I also use other styles like Janne Universe 2014.
Your theme will surely be used.
When I have some feedback I will let you know.
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Old 07-06-2014, 05:19 AM   #9
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A little bump concerning this theme.

Well, after 21 updates, I think I've got something really usable, this time : looking back, I probably posted it in the stash too soon, as it wasn't fully operational in several aspects...

So, and again, feel free to report back any problem that could still remain.

Cheers !
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Old 07-06-2014, 10:36 AM   #10
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it has indeed come a long way... however..

some things that would improve it IMO

one:

If you set up the mcp to be 'track inspector'... which is very Cubase like..

I don't find anyway to size the mcp at the left of the tcp...
this is a normally easy in most themes with a bar that separates the docked mcp from the tcp... this would be very important.

two:

try in the default theme, to grab and resize the height of the meter in the mcp... you can move it up or down so that more meter or more fx and sends show... this also should be possible IMO as it makes what you see MUCH more useful.

Now as I've said before, and this is just me, when I first came to reaper from Cubase... I also missed my cubase look... and worked out a sort of cubase look theme... but as time went on... I got with how reaper does things and how much better it can be made to look.. and so my 'cubase look' kept changing.. and eventually evolved to something I liked better...

Nowadays Cubase is just a bad dream I once had... hahaha
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Old 07-06-2014, 11:29 AM   #11
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That's really Cubase. Nice
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Old 07-07-2014, 03:05 AM   #12
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Quote:
Originally Posted by hopi View Post
it has indeed come a long way... however..

some things that would improve it IMO

one:

If you set up the mcp to be 'track inspector'... which is very Cubase like..

I don't find anyway to size the mcp at the left of the tcp...
this is a normally easy in most themes with a bar that separates the docked mcp from the tcp... this would be very important.

two:

try in the default theme, to grab and resize the height of the meter in the mcp... you can move it up or down so that more meter or more fx and sends show... this also should be possible IMO as it makes what you see MUCH more useful.

Now as I've said before, and this is just me, when I first came to reaper from Cubase... I also missed my cubase look... and worked out a sort of cubase look theme... but as time went on... I got with how reaper does things and how much better it can be made to look.. and so my 'cubase look' kept changing.. and eventually evolved to something I liked better...

Nowadays Cubase is just a bad dream I once had... hahaha
Thanks for the feedback, hopi

1) Well, I just tested it and it seems that the whole mixer is dockable on the left as other themes available. What i did :

a) In the mixer window title bar : right-clicked and choosed 'Dock mixer in docker',
b) After this, in the bar which contains the 'Mixer' labelled tab, I right-clicked and choosed 'Attached docker position : left',
c) From which I am able to freely redimension the mixer, as a track inspector (it's better to have all the tracks setted within a 'large' layout, in this case).

That's the way I usually do this. But maybe there is a quicker way to do it directly by 'dragging' with the mouse : let me know how this is supposed to work...

2) This is indeed a limitation of my theme : I never bothered about this, as Cubase doesn't allow it either, hence I'm not used to this feature, but I admit that it could be sometimes useful. Will look more closely at it and try to implement it in a following update if not too complicated.
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Old 07-07-2014, 03:40 AM   #13
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Quote:
Originally Posted by G-Sun View Post
That's really Cubase. Nice
Thanks !
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Old 07-07-2014, 01:10 PM   #14
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Well... Following hopi suggestion, I updated the theme by implementing vertically resizable mcp panels. For this, I changed the location of the mcp.recinput element, as I had to set the mcp.extmixer.mode parameter to 0.

Hope this will help...
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Old 07-10-2014, 12:10 AM   #15
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@TioNico (who just posted in the Stash)

Could you attach a screenshot of some kind here and precise again what is happening ? I'm afraid I didn't get where is exactly your issue. On my side, I'm going to upload a new .zip file including a ReadMe.txt more detailed to help the installation, as it's actually not precise enough in this part, I admit.

Cheers,

EDIT : done... You can find the new update with the revamped ReadMe.txt in the stash.
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Old 07-10-2014, 01:51 AM   #16
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This will be great for the friends of mine coming from nuendo or cubase. (or for tricking people when I'm on site)

thanks!
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Old 07-10-2014, 09:56 AM   #17
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thanks for doing that re-size work! I'll go get it now and have a looky

OH Yeah... that is MUCH better IMHO... nice work.
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Old 07-11-2014, 12:59 AM   #18
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Thanks for the feedback, hopi.

Did you solve the resizing mixer as a track inspector issue, by the way ? Just to be sure that the mixer behaves as expected in this case. It does, here, but still...
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Old 07-11-2014, 08:22 AM   #19
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yes thanks again... the changes you made let it be resized when used as a track inspector...

using it that way is very 'cubase-ish' btw... %^)

IMO your theme is now the most Cubase like theme out there...

I think I already said that looking like Cubase was a concern of mine way back when... that got left behind as I got into reaper more and more...
...gradually my CIRCUS theme kept changing from a Cubase look to my own way of wanting to see things...

To the point that eventually I made my own huge set of toolbar icons [lotta damn photoshop work]...
Now I have all that done and they fill all 8 floating toolbars and the midi ed. toolbars as well...
They make more visual sense to me, but that is cuz I made them... LoL

I might offer a thought or two for your own future considerations:

One of the major diff's between Cubase and Reaper is that in reaper we don't need to think the same way about 'instrument' tracks and 'audio' tracks... like we say in reaper, "a track is a track"...
So this way of working changes what info you want to see in the 'track inspector'... which can be adapted to taste via various layouts.
For a simple example... your current mcp layout is fine and works fine..
at the same time, since we are no longer constrained by the 'virtual instrument' or 'audio' track concept that cubase uses, we can have better looking MCP layouts... with larger meters, etc. You can see how this is done in a few other themes to get the idea...
You might like to eventually consider adding some layouts like that to your theme... and also some of the layouts that are diff sizes of blank or empty which can get used as separators...
Reaper does not have the multiple Mixer views that Cubase has...
...but the way we can have something similar is via Screen sets.
Now separators can be very nice to organize various tracks in the MCP and TCP...
Well... like I said, just thoughts for the future IF you get the themer's itch.
overall... very nice work!!!
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Old 07-11-2014, 09:56 AM   #20
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Hi again, hopi

Well, a lot of food for thought...

Looking back, the main reason for not having purchased a Reaper licence until last december was precisely the 'A track is a track' paradigm. I never felt at ease with this way of working. But I followed Reaper evolution through the years (if I remember well, I think the first time I tested it was the 2.0 version, late 2007), feeling the potential in it, but this was preventing me to consider Reaper as my main host.

This until last december : I saw that Steiny launched Cubase 7.5 without any true fixes concerning all the 7.0.x issues (UI regressions, projects loading times, responsiveness, MixConsole behavior, useless RCE, bugged Generic remote device...). So, as few weeks before I got a warning in Steiny forums for being too adamant about the UI regressions, I took the jump, seeing the Walter implementation and the evolution of the MIDI features in Reaper, and after having tested it again.

This to say that, presently, I'm still having the need to know clearly which track contains what and the little backgound colored icons at the left of the track helps me a lot in a day to day Reaper usage. I made this theme essentially because of this, actually. From which, the different layouts including them... Actually, I think that there are great themes posted in the stash, but I always come back to mine for this exact reason.

But your suggestions are well noted. So, did I get the 'themer's itch' ? Maybe... But if I was to include more layouts (separators, etc.) it would probably be in a new other theme, designed in a more 'Reaper way' of doing things. I have already more than twenty layouts in this one : more wouldn't be reasonable (unless Reaper bakers decide to include true nested layouts for Walter, but this is another story...).

Let's see what future brings and thanks again for your help and suggestions.

Cheers !
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Old 07-11-2014, 03:10 PM   #21
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interesting... about vsti tracks and such...

I think I first looked at reaper around ver 1 or 2 also and thought... OMG... what a POS...
then came back in around 3.5 or so and gave it another shot... and when I understood how 'a track is a track' actually worked... I totally went for it.
You 'can' set it up much as it's done in Cubase or Sonar, but you don't have to...

That and the routing freedom really blew me away ...

Still I do understand how being used to something like the ways of Cubase can make getting into Reaper's ways a bit slower... It did for me but only briefly. and yes, I left Cubase about ver. 5.xx and have never looked back.
...and, I am so much happier in Reaper.
Not to say Cubase is a bad DAW... it is a good one. But the response from developers and the user forum, and almost total clay-like moldability of Reaper are just a totally other world.. IMO of course.

I guess as to layouts I was thinking about big meters, diff sized sliders, and things along those lines... and, not at all to be critical... just discussing.
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Old 07-11-2014, 10:35 PM   #22
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Indeed, the behavior of Steiny is, well... a model of what shouldn't exist. And I agree, at least to a certain extent, about the moldability of reaper. OTOH, some things remain irritating in Reaper to me : the strange bahavior of the recarm/recmon couple of buttons, the rather confusing routing setup which has to be made to set up a multichannels/multiouts VSTi, the impossibility to add custom controls in the track panel, whether directly or via Walter (I'm thinking about controls such as 'Set track timebase' or one to directly access to the VSTi window used on the track, i.e.), and, yes, the lack of a track inspector or, at least, a second mixer view for this purpose...

About the layouts, criticism is welcome ! I will remember that you are nearly the only one here who took his time to test, report back issues and make suggestions about my theme. This helps a lot... . Now, as I already said, if I was to add new layouts it will probably be in another new theme. There are already too much of them in this one, IMO...
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Old 07-12-2014, 09:02 AM   #23
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hey yeah... I hear ya
I'm always happy to chat about what I consider to be good work

Now about 'track inspector'... perhaps you do or don't know how you can have that in reaper? Quick example:
[IMG]http://***************/a/img820/6725/xjq.gif[/IMG]

I tried to show more but the file size gets too big for me to upload to Imageshack... darn it.

but you can see how I set up the mcp as 'track inspector' and then how easy it is to bring up or close the various VSTi's and other FX on that track. True for sends other controls IF you want them to show as well.

Oh.. one niggle ... your monitoring button icon [the little speaker icon] is set to green for Auto and yellowish for ON... ummm normally Green it the ON condition and Yellowish is the Auto... and gray is OFF... likely just a matter of renaming the png files, eh?

Umm as an afterthought... here is my CIRCUS theme showing a few ways that it evolved from what started as a 'cubase' like theme...
Notable tricks are the way a selected track gets a color border around it, same for a selected media item... I have layouts for big meters, and others that are not shown, ... also how I deal with the floating toolbars at top... so I can switch between 8 of them with a clk on the numbers at the left... again, I can only show a very little since the gif gets too big for Imageshack to accept rather quickly...

[IMG]http://***************/a/img823/8792/c1v9.gif[/IMG]

so hey, just showing some of this to feed your creativity..
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Old 07-12-2014, 09:19 AM   #24
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Oh btw... after reading your first post again, about those send list controls in the MCP... you CAN have it with no visible knob I did it that way for awhile but then went back to the knob...

The trick for that is to just make the pngs for the knob and the knob pointer in Photoshop and set their transparency to 1% which makes them essentially invisible, yet they occupy the same space. Messing with transparency settings for the png files can produce some clever results. Below you can see one example of transparency used to indicate the folder structure... this took a lot of trial and error but I eventually got what I wanted, which was to have the folder indicators show but not interfere with any given track colors.

[IMG]http://imagizer.**************/v2/xq90/834/plaf.png[/IMG]
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Old 07-12-2014, 11:41 PM   #25
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Hi again, hopi

Yes, I know about the track inspector, but completely overlooked the 'Show in separate window' option for the master track. To be honest, I prefer using a simple track inspector, with the master track showed as master.tcp (in the arrange window) with a 'Track inspector' used only for the current selected track. Thinking of it after few tests, it would be nice to have, in my theme, an option which would allow all the tracks in the mixer to be set as 'Large' in order for them to appear with the relevent horizontal size when the mixer is set as a track inspector. Will look more closely at this : maybe it's possible, using again actions in the 'Screensets/Layout' window.

And ooops ! You are absolutely right about the monitor button. Already fixed it and I'll upload an update today that includes the fix, with few other ones. I'm still wondering how I missed it... From which the importance of getting feedback, when posting such a work.

And, seeing the screenshot of my theme, it seems like it's been done in 8 bits colors instead of 32 bits ones : maybe it is so to make the image small enough to be posted. Could you confirm ?

Concerning the knob in the sendlist, it's not the knob itself which is gaving me problem : I indeed managed to get it almost invisible already. The problem is the 0 level value mark which, if you look closely, appears as a more or less apparent grey vertical bar in the right of each sendlist slot, when active. This is, again, an irritating example of an uncontrolable Reaper color mixture (another one is the 'Tint track panel background' option). I tried to fool it in every possible way (by, among others, tweaking the mcp_sendlist_meter.png file), I think, to no avail...

Cheers !


EDIT : done... the new update is in the stash.
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Old 07-13-2014, 07:46 AM   #26
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Hi again...

the 8 bit color you see is because of LICECap [you know about that tool, right?] If not, it's a screen capture by Cockos that makes an animated gif file, an animated loop really.. and yes it makes rather low rez of the colors..so we see some banding and other stuff even at it's best settings...
Also, since we then need to upload that gif to something like Imageshack, we are limited by how much we can record since Imageshack will not accept files above a certain size [about 25 mb I think]... maybe there is some other file hosting that will handle larger but I don't know of it... tell me if you do plz.

Ah yes that little damn zero vertical line... I feel for you ... I had this 'great idea' way back when.. here is what I tried:
I went to great lengths in photoshop and then trial and error with the theme to make the volume bar png to look like this:
the OK part of the vol would be a blue gradient and then the little part to the right of zero would be red, to tell me that I was over zero... and then there would be no knob... [invisible pngs] so to use it, you still had to drag in the knob area but would not see a knob.
Now after much single pixel tweaking, I got this working nicely on my own monitors... then sent the theme to a buddy and saw that on his monitors it was all wrong... [oh shit!] ... so I learned a delicate tweak like that is also dependent on the monitor resolution and could not be made to work universally... I was very bummed by that. So yeah, I do understand and do not know any way to get rid of that damn vertical line...

Now since that time WALTER began to allow for png stacks for knobs, but I don't know IF it would allow those for this function. IF it did, I or you could make a png stack for sends in Knobman and 'maybe' that would deal with it. I'd be happy to make that png stack to your spec's if you want to give it a try. Do you use Knobman?

oh, as to the speaker green thing... well it is amazing to me how much I don't see... I just finished the round of edits on a book with the help of about 5 other proof readers... each of whom caught things that the others all missed... it took about 20 rounds of edits to get it 'right'... we are strange creatures!
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Old 07-18-2014, 10:17 PM   #27
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Hi, hopi and sorry for the late answer (I'm often in the mountains hiking these days)...

I know about the LICECap existence but never used it. A typical tool that I would like to test but never really feel the need to do so. Anyway, this indeed explains the screenshot aspect.

Yes, the vertical 0 level value is a PITA : still didn't find the way to get rid of it. Beside this, I didn't know the exitence of 'Knobman' until now. But if it could let me, at least, avoid the use of Inkscape, it would be great ! This one is horrible to use : a great potential but full of quirks and as unintuitive as could be... Anyway, thanks for the proposition ! Will let you know if I really feel the need of it, but sincerely, I'm still wondering in which cases the use of knobs stacks is mandatory. The way I deal with, say, the knobs in the mcp.fxparm of my theme seems to do trick, actually...

I'm not surprised about your book editing : how many times did I re-read as carefully as I could documents on screen, just to discover that, once printed, there were still mistakes here and there ? I guess that it's been more or less each time...

In a more general way, I just uploaded a new update of my theme in the stash, which I consider as a true '1.0' version. If you have time, let me know what you feel about it...

Thanks again !
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Old 07-19-2014, 10:47 PM   #28
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mountains... yes... I just got back from a week away in the remote lands... damn wish I was still there....

I'll get a look tomorrow...

and briefly... inkscape has never been friendly for me... vectors yes, but inkscape... umm not me thanks just the same...

and... knobman very useful tool... tricky to get used to it but it is worth the effort IMO. We can talk more about it soon if you like.
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Old 08-07-2014, 07:21 PM   #29
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I just downloaded and tried this on a mix.
Killer look and feel!!
You nailed it !!

This was the first theme I've ever tried, too. This is the greatest community of audio lovers ever!

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Old 08-08-2014, 07:12 AM   #30
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where do I put the *.reapermenu within a portable installation? I dont have those paths you mention in the readme not in my W7.
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Old 08-09-2014, 10:35 PM   #31
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Thanks for the feedback, GoDawg !

Whiteaxxxe, all depends of where your portable installation is set. So, let's supposed you have it on F:\Reaper (could be an USB stick with a \Reaper folder on it) :
1) The Piolit.ReaperThemeZip file should be put in F:\Reaper\ColorThemes
2) the *.ReaperMenu files should be put in F:\Reaper\MenuSets
3) The Piolit_InsertTracksWithLayouts.ReaperKeyMap should be put in F:\Reaper\KeyMaps.

Remember that, if you are using the bundled toolbars, they should be imported and opened in the relevent places. There are also added settings to check in the Preferences>Appearance, such as :
- Track Control panels>Tint track panel backgrounds should be unticked
- Track Control panels>Set track panel background... should also be unticked
- Peaks/Waveforms>Tint media item waveform... should all be unticked
- Peaks/Waveforms>Tint media item background... : I tick the first one.

etc.

Let me know if something is misbehaving.
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Old 08-19-2014, 01:00 AM   #32
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1.10 version just uploaded. It could be the last one, unless something is still misbehaving or if some of you post here feasible feature requests concerning it. Otherwise, I'll let it as it is, as everything is working as expected for the way I work with Reaper, but it's just me, I admit...

I'm hitting Walter/theming limitations for any further improvements that I would like to do and, honestly, I'm getting tired of it. Now, back to music...

Hope it will be useful for at least some of you...
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Old 08-19-2014, 07:16 AM   #33
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thanks for the ongoing work! Darn nice theme.
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Old 08-19-2014, 11:32 PM   #34
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Thanks to you, hopi, and for all the tests, feedback and suggestions you did. It's been all the more appreciated since there haven't been much of them beside yours...
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Old 08-20-2014, 11:20 AM   #35
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nice to be in an exclusive club... LoL

IMO you have done an excellent piece of work on this theme... others have tried but you really just did it.

And for a few Cubase refugee's I'm sure it will be the defacto methadone [haha] until they get clean and can move along into other GUI's...

I think what happens, as I've said before, is that at first Qbase folks miss the look... and then after awhile, as they get into actually using reaper and learn it's ways, they can let go and adventure out into the land of being able to swap between many themes on the fly. Certainly an experience that not many DAW's offer, eh?

So don't feel bad if not a ton of people jump all over Pilot... and also know a lot of people just don't bother to post comments... so it goes.
IMO, you can rest assured that you did a very good thing.
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Old 08-20-2014, 12:19 PM   #36
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Quote:
Originally Posted by cubic13 View Post
1.10 version just uploaded. It could be the last one, unless something is still misbehaving or if some of you post here feasible feature requests concerning it. Otherwise, I'll let it as it is, as everything is working as expected for the way I work with Reaper, but it's just me, I admit...

I'm hitting Walter/theming limitations for any further improvements that I would like to do and, honestly, I'm getting tired of it. Now, back to music...

Hope it will be useful for at least some of you...
Hi Cubic13. I wanted to thank you for your work.
I always like a Cubase-like theme. As I am a Cubase Refugee,
this is how my (DA)W looked like from the early Midi-only-days on.

What I especially like is your idea of track-classes. Very neat.
I did not use your Menues, as I have built my own ones.

As for feedback (which you requested).
There are 2 things I which would really make my day and probably let me switch over to using your theme constantly.

1. I would prefer a bit lighter colors, which is more easy on the eyes (imho).
2. I would like to fold down the mixer to be as half as high as it possible at the moment. Therefor the slots for inserts and sends should be hidden.

I hope the LiceCap shows what I mean. BTW this is the old AlterEgo theme. I like it much but there is nor further development for it anymore.

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Old 08-20-2014, 08:19 PM   #37
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Whistler... it's not my place to comment on the theme work, however unless I don't understand what you are asking about...

you can already adust the mcp pretty much as you wish...

you can make the fader section taller or shorter by a very great degree and as far as showing slots for whatever you can generally deal with that when you do a rt clk on the Master Fader section and get to the menu that gives the options for what the MCP shows and how it shows that.

As for colors... I think they are based on Cubase [even though I know in real Cubase you can adjust them]... however you might try to customize Pilot for yourself with both the Pref's theme editor and also by making your choice of colors for the various png files that make up the theme.
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Old 08-20-2014, 10:52 PM   #38
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@hopi - You're probably right : Cubase like kind of themes is not the most sought one as, somehow, it goes against all the Reaper philosophy which could be summed as a 'A track is universal' statement. I know this, but it didn't prevent you to take a close look at my work. So, thanks again !

@TheWhistler
About your first suggestion, guess what ? I am increasingly feeling the same way, using it : just yesterday after a two hours session, I was thinking : "this is really TOO dark" and I was especially thinking this about the mixer. So, I'm going to probably fix this, somehow. The problem is that there are several .png files involved, so it will take some time. I'm just about to go for 4-5 days but will look at this more closely when back home. So, stay tuned...

About your second suggestion, you can already use the tcp folder icon (the one which is displayed on the upper left of a folder track in the arrange view) to cycle between normal-minimal-hidden tracks height included in the folder. The rest is all about redimensioning as wished the involved tracks. I don't think I can improve this further, sadly.

Thanks for the feedback !
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Old 08-20-2014, 11:36 PM   #39
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Quote:
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@TheWhistler
About your first suggestion, guess what ? I am increasingly feeling the same way, using it : just yesterday after a two hours session, I was thinking : "this is really TOO dark" and I was especially thinking this about the mixer. So, I'm going to probably fix this, somehow. The problem is that there are several .png files involved, so it will take some time. I'm just about to go for 4-5 days but will look at this more closely when back home. So, stay tuned...

About your second suggestion, you can already use the tcp folder icon (the one which is displayed on the upper left of a folder track in the arrange view) to cycle between normal-minimal-hidden tracks height included in the folder. The rest is all about redimensioning as wished the involved tracks. I don't think I can improve this further, sadly.

Thanks for the feedback !
I hope I don´t annoy you with my suggestions (especially the mixer-resize-thingy).
I made another LiceCap in which I wanted to point to the restrictions in resizing in the piolit-theme.
By pulling the whole mixer section downwards I never get to the point I have with the other theme in the LiceCap of my previous post.
This may have something to do with the borders of some elements and how they react when sqeezed (getting smaller, disapear, etc.) Is this WALTER?



I don´t really know how to mess around with that.
I tried to lighten the colors a bit. But I realized, that not all of them are tweakable via the theming-options.
I forgot to save last night so this colors in the LiceCap are the default ones.
Thank´s again for your work it is really appreciated.

Greetz Whistler
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Old 08-21-2014, 12:08 AM   #40
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Quote:
Originally Posted by TheWhistler View Post
I hope I don´t annoy you with my suggestions (especially the mixer-resize-thingy).
I made another LiceCap in which I wanted to point to the restrictions in resizing in the piolit-theme.
By pulling the whole mixer section downwards I never get to the point I have with the other theme in the LiceCap of my previous post.
This may have something to do with the borders of some elements and how they react when sqeezed (getting smaller, disapear, etc.) Is this WALTER?



I don´t really know how to mess around with that.
I tried to lighten the colors a bit. But I realized, that not all of them are tweakable via the theming-options.
I forgot to save last night so this colors in the LiceCap are the default ones.
Thank´s again for your work it is really appreciated.

Greetz Whistler
Sorry, I didn't understand at first that your suggestion is about the mcp, as I'm not able to view the LiceCap stuff, here. And yes, the restriction of shrinking the whole mcp height depends on several Walter instructions. Before allowing less restriction, I'll have to check first how the different mcp elements defined by Walter instructions behave : will see what I can do about it when back home.

And about the colors, it depends on several background .png files included in the theme, so the options in the theme editor are useless, in this case. Will also look at it to find the right color balance.

Cheers,
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