TCP/MCP Icons a complete waste of time ?

[Win Conway]

Maybe i am missing something here

1 You can't define in WALTER where the icons go
2 There is zero control over the size of the icon (No matter if you make the icon the exact same size as your track it still stretchs
3 Quite often icons get cropped instead of stretched

Is this just a feature that somebody asked for and the devs implemented in ten minutes and have left half baked again ?

(I am going by the WALTER SDK here, no mention of icons other than some scalar stuff, IE about as useful as a teabag with no holes)

set mcp_icon [1 1 25 10 1 0 1 0 1]
that would make sense no ?

[Sigilus]

I used to think they were fun, but that was really it - fun. They took up space, behaved unpredictably, and didn't contribute to my workflow, so I no longer use them at all.

[Rick Welin]

I feel they cheapen the whole look of things, and never use them. I would be embarrassed in front of clients. LOL YMMV

[hopi]

Originally Posted by gpunk_w

Maybe i am missing something here

1 You can't define in WALTER where the icons go
2 There is zero control over the size of the icon (No matter if you make the icon the exact same size as your track it still stretchs
3 Quite often icons get cropped instead of stretched

Is this just a feature that somebody asked for and the devs implemented in ten minutes and have left half baked again ?

(I am going by the WALTER SDK here, no mention of icons other than some scalar stuff, IE about as useful as a teabag with no holes)

set mcp_icon [1 1 25 10 1 0 1 0 1]
that would make sense no ?

just was dealing with some the issues around track icons...

they are some what defined in the tcp and mcp by both WALTER and the theme's png's for icons and icons select in both the mcp and tcp.

and then there is the issue of how your own track icons with draw into the theme's given space...

I don't find much in the way of rules, but do find some joy in just raw experimentation to get as close to what I want as I can.

I have a lot of custom made track icons as pngs... I constantly find problem ones that I have to get back to and either clean up or refine... [read: more tedious photoshop work]

One's chose to use them or not is of course just that, but you can make them more to your own liking... if your theme gives you the space.

[James HE]

I used them once. I think my exact words were

"OK, that's a complete waste of time...."

/cue random rant


In basic tracking I do name things rather appropriately, (kick, snare, blah, blah, glockenspiel) SO maybe they could be useful there.

When I am mixing (and I think everyone should do this, it should become law) I rename my tracks to be something silly, obtuse, colorful, or irrational.

I have no idea how to mix "lead guitar 1" and "lead guitar 2" - I do, however, know exactly how to mix "cupcake" and "twinkie"

What does "Main Vocal" sound like? I don't know, sounds awfully boring. I do know what "sugarpuss" sounds like though.

I have 4 drum tracks, kick, snare, two overheads. I don't know, they just sound like... whatever. But, "Harry" "you're" "A" "Beast" sound pretty awesome together!

[hopi]

Originally Posted by James HE

I used them once. I think my exact words were

"OK, that's a complete waste of time...."

/cue random rant


In basic tracking I do name things rather appropriately, (kick, snare, blah, blah, glockenspiel) SO maybe they could be useful there.

When I am mixing (and I think everyone should do this, it should become law) I rename my tracks to be something silly, obtuse, colorful, or irrational.

I have no idea how to mix "lead guitar 1" and "lead guitar 2" - I do, however, know exactly how to mix "cupcake" and "twinkie"

What does "Main Vocal" sound like? I don't know, sounds awfully boring. I do know what "sugarpuss" sounds like though.

I have 4 drum tracks, kick, snare, two overheads. I don't know, they just sound like... whatever. But, "Harry" "you're" "A" "Beast" sound pretty awesome together!

well now Jame... you ARE and odd aligator indeed... but just think what images would be like as trk icons for your choice of names

[Sigilus]

Hah, yeah, that's the best.

More "Hops" and a 3db cut in the mids on "Boobies"

[karbomusic]

Originally Posted by Sigilus

I used to think they were fun, but that was really it - fun. They took up space, behaved unpredictably, and didn't contribute to my workflow, so I no longer use them at all.

Yup, I found them of little use. I had fun with them for like 10 minutes before they came just another dependency.

[gofer]

They aren't important for many and they basically work, so I'd rather think it would be a waste of time to spend much effort on refining the implementation if those parts of the code aren't in focus for other more serious reasons anyway.

Personally I do use them (not the stock ones and not on all tracks) and they help me navigate. I don't like when they grow full size (which is fixed at 64x64px), so I work at a certain tcp width and a low mixer strip height which keeps them small. Both happen to be comfortable sizes (for me and in my theme), so I'm a pretty happy camper where track icons are concerned.

Nevertheless it would fit my fancy to get some WALTER handle on them, but seeing the posts here it's obvious that not investing dev time on them is the right choice.

[Win Conway]

The reason i wanted to get them going Gofer was to use them as colors, I despise the "color entire panel" thing reaper has going on and have asked for there to be a definable area in WALTER for a little square i can color or whatever.

Then i brainstormed "Screw it i will use MCP/TCP icons" but you have zero control over the size or placement hahaha

So i'm boned either way haha

[gofer]

I had such a hunch, seeing pics from the theme you use it's pretty clear that you aren't the icon type of guy

There are these color strip WALTER tricks (I think the tactic is: color the whole background and use another image to cover most of it except the part you wanted colored). I think timlloyd does just that in his default theme tweak here: http://forum.cockos.com/showthread.php?t=104070

I believe it's pretty involved waltering though and don't know the restrictions. I did a test layout once, but didn't find it worth the effort and went back to coloring the name field (with other tricky methods to get faithful colors, not tinted to unrecognizable by namebg.png or whatever). Coloring (on tracks and items) is actually a field where I'd like to get improvement (much more than icons).

[karbomusic]

Originally Posted by gpunk_w

The reason i wanted to get them going Gofer was to use them as colors, I despise the "color entire panel" thing reaper has going on and have asked for there to be a definable area in WALTER for a little square i can color or whatever.

I thought you could set an option to only set the color to the text area of the track (like Imperials TCP for example) or did I completey miss your point.

EDIT: Nevermind, I just reread your post.

[hopi]

Originally Posted by gpunk_w

The reason i wanted to get them going Gofer was to use them as colors, I despise the "color entire panel" thing reaper has going on and have asked for there to be a definable area in WALTER for a little square i can color or whatever.

Then i brainstormed "Screw it i will use MCP/TCP icons" but you have zero control over the size or placement hahaha

So i'm boned either way haha

not entirely true... here you can see a color [just for test] in my current mod of Imperial... the same 'icon' looks diff in other themes... there are mcp and tcp icon png files for both selected and non selected in the themes.. and you have some control over them with WALTER..

[IMG]http://**************/a/img441/37/colortrkicons.gif[/IMG]

[Lawrence]

What am I missing there with that color icon? Is it just telling you the track is red or can you click it and change the track color to something else?

I don't see the point if the media clip is red or whatever so I must be missing something else there... the purpose of having a red track icon when you can just color the track panel.

Thanks.

[gofer]

That capture shows exquisitely what I don't like about track icons. They change size when you change track height and shove all other stuff around, as if the other stuff wasn't more important than the fancy icon (it gets really ridiculous should one decide to use icons as an alternative way to color code tracks) .

As said, I do use icons, but restrict myself to using that one specific width where icons can't grow too much (that "golden" width where they juuust pop up and would disappear if I went a single pixel narrower). If I couldn't do that I'd not use them at all.

[hopi]

Originally Posted by gofer

That capture shows exquisitely what I don't like about track icons. They change size when you change track height and shove all other stuff around, as if the other stuff wasn't more important than the fancy icon (it gets really ridiculous should one decide to use icons as an alternative way to color code tracks) .

As said, I do use icons, but restrict myself to using that one specific width where icons can't grow too much (that "golden" width where they juuust pop up and would disappear if I went a single pixel narrower). If I couldn't do that I'd not use them at all.

right and right...

was only addressing the particular comment... and sure no need to use them for just color unless you wanted to...
they 'can' display various ways though... the ones used in this example gif are very large sized png's... I could have used a vry small one an just shown a dot of color...

I agree with all points here, only pointing out that there is some flexibility... not enough, but some.

[gofer]

Yes, of course I understood that, Hopi. I just took the opportunity, because your screencap shows extremely well to the point what my main niggles are.

There is that hardware-like GUI and all those fine solid looking buttons and knobs just float away - because some image that could be 20x20px or less to carry the same info insists on being supersized. It just couldn't be demonstrated better .


Edit:

Originally Posted by hopi

... I could have used a vry small one an just shown a dot of color...

Try as I might. If I use small pngs they just get scaled up to 64x64px here as soon as track height/width allows it. Are you saying you can have a track icon of, say, 32x32px that stays 32x32 maximum?

[witti]

I use track icons this way...



...they are my record arm buttons!

I only need a few of them, so i created some layouts with the icons i often use.

Drum icon example:

[gwok]

i use track icons all the time. The fact that their behaviour\functionality is seriously warped (literally) is not lost on me. That doesn't mean they are not a good thing though (i think they are) - they just need some love

[Win Conway]

Originally Posted by hopi

not entirely true... here you can see a color [just for test] in my current mod of Imperial... the same 'icon' looks diff in other themes... there are mcp and tcp icon png files for both selected and non selected in the themes.. and you have some control over them with WALTER..

Actually you missed my point a bit
I mean't that you have no control of where the icon appears or is placed in teh MCP or TCP (It is always at the top of the MCP or far right of he TCP)
Which to me is completely useless

[Win Conway]

Originally Posted by gofer

I had such a hunch, seeing pics from the theme you use it's pretty clear that you aren't the icon type of guy

There are these color strip WALTER tricks (I think the tactic is: color the whole background and use another image to cover most of it except the part you wanted colored). I think timlloyd does just that in his default theme tweak here: http://forum.cockos.com/showthread.php?t=104070

I believe it's pretty involved waltering though and don't know the restrictions. I did a test layout once, but didn't find it worth the effort and went back to coloring the name field (with other tricky methods to get faithful colors, not tinted to unrecognizable by namebg.png or whatever). Coloring (on tracks and items) is actually a field where I'd like to get improvement (much more than icons).

Even with that trick you are still limited in the way it works and placement, really there should just be a vector square that can be defined in WALTER, then if you selected the color red it would actually be red too, rather than the stupifying guesswork of what color you are actually going to end up with now, using the madness that is reaper coloring haha
(A perfect example of this, set prefs only color track name background, now change that to any color, doesnt look like the color you changed it to right, now click to rename the track yaaaaaaaay the color is now correct hahahaha)

[gofer]

Originally Posted by gpunk_w

Even with that trick you are still limited in the way it works and placement, really there should just be a vector square that can be defined in WALTER, then if you selected the color red it would actually be red too, rather than the stupifying guesswork of what color you are actually going to end up with now, using the madness that is reaper coloring haha
(A perfect example of this, set prefs only color track name background, now change that to any color, doesnt look like the color you changed it to right, now click to rename the track yaaaaaaaay the color is now correct hahahaha)

I believe with that trick you are pretty free with placement and size, but stuck with the color-mix madness . I am anal with track colors, so I can't use that.

I have the pure colors on my name fields. If your theme doesn't have m(t)cp_namebg.png the colors are correct on the name fields, but it comes with yet other sacrifices.
If you insist on a fancy border on the name field things get complicated (if name field stretches or moves). You can do the border with an overlay of another element, but that element would need to stretch and move parallel with the name field...

Of course colored name fields restrict the color choice, or track names can be bad to read... So some themes revert to yet another trick - use a small name field coloring and margin the text away from the color. But that's bad when entering names (the text enter field doesn't obey the margin, so you fly blind).

Yep, a definable extra color field would be the best solution and believe me, you're not the first to say it