Walter kills theme creation?

[pixeltarian]

I feel like since V4 came out we've had WAAAAAYYYY less themes come out. Did WALTER kill theme creation because it's too confusing for folks?

[Jae.Thomas]

Originally Posted by pixeltarian

I feel like since V4 came out we've had WAAAAAYYYY less themes come out. Did WALTER kill theme creation because it's too confusing for folks?

do you need to know walter to theme? Or just to use the advanced features of theming?

[pixeltarian]

Originally Posted by Jason Brian Merrill

do you need to know walter to theme? Or just to use the advanced features of theming?

I'm not 100% sure. I think you could in theory theme without walter, but if you start theming and then learn of the existence of wanter, it might derail the process and the theming project could get shelved. This is, of course, wild speculation, but in either case I think the amount of theming going on is way less than v3.

[zappsunzorn]

Just looking at the Reaper stash it seems that Reaper theming is alive and well. Walter adds so much flexibility, each unique Walter theme is far more valuable, than a Reaper 3 theme. A Reaper 2or3 theme is almost completely a visual change, and not a functional one.

[pyerbass]

Well Walter is a mess, but a very powerfull one,
I was about to give up when I first opened a rtconfig file.
But finally it's still not coding or programing.

My good old analog api is on its way, it take mounths, but I don't regret to be able to reach the layout I always wanted, I just hope it will be done before reaper 5!

[White Tie]

Originally Posted by pixeltarian

I feel like since V4 came out we've had WAAAAAYYYY less themes come out. Did WALTER kill theme creation because it's too confusing for folks?

It may feel that way, and I can see why, but I would say this:

1. Previously the vast majority of themes made were mix'n'match. You may not have spotted how much of this went on because you might not have been aware of the donor themes, and a few themers were less than rigorous about crediting their sources. There is no question that WALTER themes are far more tricky to do mix'n'match with, and the users aren't that interested in ye olde non-WALTER'd themes, so we don't see nearly as much of that any more. On the other hand, the quantity of creator-original themes being made has dropped less than you might think.

2. You can do so much more with WALTER that obviously people want to. The more ambitious you are, the more work it takes, so in that respect it has increased the work required. All those extra layouts, fun things, and clever user-workflow tricks ...they all take time. I have noticed that several of the most popular WALTER themes have relatively unsophisticated WALTER, in some ways making them less functional than pre-WALTER themes. And you know what? That's fine; the users like the themes and variety is always positive. Every theme made is 100% a positive step in every possible way, even if not a single user likes it or uses it.

3. Many, many long-term themers are inactive or (those that I am in contact with) sitting on incomplete themes. There are many reasons for this, as I have previously commented things have got a bit less friendly round here and I know a number of themers have expressed 'screw those guys, I'm outa here' sentiments. The more ambitious a themer is, the longer it will take them to complete their theme, and the greater the risk there is that an ill-considered comment will drain their supply of good will. Contributors need a thick skin to work on the internet, but users need excellent manners to get lots of free high-quality work from contributors. These two things cannot coexist, so we must constantly make a serious effort, together, to strike a good balance.

4. We've always had periods of drought and periods of vigorous theming activity, and it always feels like 'OMG this is the end of theming'. Hasn't actually come to that in all these years.

5. WALTER makes things easier, so better results are possible. It easy to forget that for many years the most difficult bit of Reaper theming was to learn all the contradictory colour assignments (change one thing, totally unrelated element changes colour too) and them come up with a design that works with all those maddeningly frustrating constraints. Took forever! WALTER allows us to design more, so it favours designers.

Originally Posted by Jason Brian Merrill

do you need to know walter to theme? Or just to use the advanced features of theming?

No, WALTER is entirely optional. Its an extra layer of control allowing tweakage of things that were previously fixed, and only if you want to. Everything else is as it always was, moreover you need to understand standard theming to lay the groundwork for any WALTER work.


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Reasons I believe people find WALTER difficult

I've helped a lot of people get to grips with WALTER, and I've done a bit of user testing getting people to learn WALTER. I've seen raw noobs grasp the fundamentals of WALTER in about an hour, if they go about it the right way (which obviously I think means 'doing it the way I suggest' ) Here's where I've noticed people going wrong:

Not knowing pre-V4 theming. - to follow Reaper's principle of backwards compatibility, the foundation of a Reaper theme has not changed. All those weird image names are still with us, some of the restrictive theme-colour assigments are unchanged, though we can now use WALTER to circumvent them. New users attempting WALTER theming know none of this, and it takes as much learning as it always did before. If they just dive straight into WALTER that causes a lot of problems that would be avoided by a tiny bit of up-front theme knowledge.

Starting out by trying to edit an existing theme - *sigh* folks, please hear me now; don't do this. And really don't do this if that theme is the uber-complex V4 default theme. Start with the base WALTER. Kill everything on one panel, and then bring one element back with a super-simple line of WALTER. Fiddle with it - move it, stretch it, play with the edge attachments. The introduce a simple condition, and play with doing different things when the panel is resized. Once that all makes sense, congratulations: you have learnt 90% of what you will spend your time doing when WALTER theming, and you will be able to look at complex themes and grasp some of what is going on, and you will be able to read the SDK in a way that makes sense.

Not reading the Themer's guide but just dipping in and out of it - I know I drone on rather, and its a lot of words particularly if your English isn't great. Sorry. But read it. In order.


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WALTER is lots of very simple stuff, repeated a lot. The syntax of massively complex nested conditions is an absolute headscratcher for everyone (if your name isn't Frankel), but what's going on within them is ...very simple stuff. I promise.

[airon]

Yeah, if I design my own layout(on top of an existing theme thank you), I'll start from scratch(for that layout) and taylor it to my taste.

I can see it now.

A TCP and MCP layout, taylored to mixing only. Dream come true, and actually not that hard if you start with a nice static layout.

Anyone can make a button or two, so starting simple is not a big deal. Still a programmers thing though. I mean, who else designs GUI layouts with code ?

[Viente]

Quality not quantity!

[Pixelshock]

I know we've discussed this before, but I'm gonna toss it out there again:

Make premium themes available and give the creators a cut. It's not only an incentive to make a little flow....it also encourages super awesome design work to drop into the Reaper community. It's the exact same model that wincustomize.com uses and it works.

For us designers that actually make a living pushing pixels around....it's work. We love doing it, but we do it all day - everyday - and time is money. Getting pro and polished themes takes a ton of time, and anyone who does that sort of thing has tons of personal projects and artwork that they enjoy doing (for themselves) on TOP of creating designs to pay the bills.

I just see it as opportunity missed. When you've got 50 5-star/kick ass themes for Reaper to choose from, that's just another HUGE sign to wave in front of all the other DAWs that says "Hey, look how awesome this is! And you can't do it!". It's a ridiculously cool feature that needs to be showcased. Just my opinion. We pay for good music. We pay for good graphics. We're all artists here. Do something amazing and I'll gladly pay for it. Besides, as WT mentioned, there's always gonna be some hate thrown at any design. And designers (and musicians) have to learn to deal with that. But when people vote with their wallets, it tends to make the hate much less painful.

I'll throw this on the end and shut up about it: I'd gladly drop $10 or $20 on a super-awesome theme that I'd end up using everyday while using Reaper. -End rant.

[Youn]

I think it's also that the latest default simply works for more people.

[Youn]

Originally Posted by airon

I mean, who else designs GUI layouts with code ?

Anyone who does HTML/CSS by hand would probably have an ok time working with walter.

[krahosk]

I would certainly pay for a premium theme. Encourage the community.

[Lawrence]

Originally Posted by airon

Anyone can make a button or two, so starting simple is not a big deal. Still a programmers thing though. I mean, who else designs GUI layouts with code ?

Not me. I ... dabbled a little bit ... and quickly came to the conclusion that anything I could assemble wouldn't be nearly as good as what's already out there. Given White Tie's comments above, I might actually try again though.

There's a "time vs. result" balancing there for us themeing Rea-tards and it didn't balance out that well for this particular Forrest Gump.

[Artbay]

Originally Posted by Lawrence

Not me. I ... dabbled a little bit ... and quickly came to the conclusion that anything I could assemble wouldn't be nearly as good as what's already out there. Given White Tie's comments above, I might actually try again though.

There's a "time vs. result" balancing there for us themeing Rea-tards and it didn't balance out that well for this particular Forrest Gump.

same here...

[Coachz]

I would watch theming videos if anyone made them.

[rothchild]

I found WALTER far easier to wrap my head around and get to grips with than I have actually creating the buttons and widgets. I'm clearly no expert but getting to the 90% knowledge needed to nudge stuff around and add simple conditions, aw WT mentioned, is relatively straightforward

Inkscape baffles me completely!

Child

[Stargard]

Originally Posted by Youn

I think it's also that the latest default simply works for more people.

I'll second that. I've tried out a couple of the new v4 themes and most of them have one or two fantastic ideas, which I miss in the default theme. But then, the rest is not so thought out/simply doesn't work for me. Meaning, I go back to the default layout.

The second point is, given that v4 is pretty young and people are pretty ambitious trying to incorporate WALTER, you do see less original themes and less "remixes". So even if someone wishes to create his own theme, you have just a few new themes which inspire you to create your own. Ergo, no motivation, since the "default simply works".

I need to look into that whole theme-WALTER-world, as there are some simple things which get on my nerves in the default theme. For example, I don't need faders in the arrangement window taking 50% of the track's horizontal space. Vol/Pan/Width as knobs is enough. If I want to automate a parameter, I don't need a fader either. The rest can be done in the mixer window, via faders (aka "real" mixing).

The room I save can be used to place a docker on the left for a track I currently selected in the arrangement window. So that I don't even have to switch to the mixer view 9 out of 10 times.

Stuff like that interests me. Or for example a REAL folder view, where when I close the folder, I don't have these useless lines below the folder track symbolizing the tracks contained within.

And so on. If anybody can point me to some topics/material I should read with the goals I have outlined above in mind, that'd be great. Thanks in advance.

[Coachz]

what happened to that guy designing a walter gui designer ?

[Jae.Thomas]

yes, tbh I feel the default theme is just really excellent - pretty hard to make something that works as well... although there have been some great themes, I simply don't have time to be trying out new ones when the default does what I want.

I would rather see variations on the default like new icons, new layout options, etc...

[Sigilus]

Originally Posted by Coachz

I would watch theming videos if anyone made them.

this is an EXCELLENT idea. (make videos)

[jedstar2000]

v4 Theming is much more demanding on designers .

The workload has just gone threw the roof.

The thing with the V3 theming is anyone could simply swap parts around make a modification hear a tweak there and end up with something fairly usable .
Its not that walter is tricky its that you need to approach the design of a theme from first principles , make mock ups and in all put a lot more design work in to it. Look how long and how many man hours went into the default theme. It would be a magnificent effort to put this much work in as an individual doing it just for kicks but I don't think many people have enough hours in the day to undertake or complete such works.
I was hoping to see more people clubbing together to share the workload but maybe thats me being a bit of a hippie

That said I can't see many people using a v3 theme now we have walter.

So my thanks and admiration goes out to anyone tackling v4 theming

[rothchild]

Originally Posted by jedstar2000

I was hoping to see more people clubbing together to share the workload but maybe thats me being a bit of a hippie

I'd be down for a bit of this (given my ineptitude at drawing). I'd be happy to work at my WALTERing in return for some good graphic desigh.

The folk who bring the whole game together do deserve a lot of admiration, it's an exceptional skill.

Child

[Pashkuli]

Think there was a thread about WALTER GUI or something. Do not know what happened there though... maybe it is still in pre-development phase.

Couldn't search/find it neither in the forum...