Spare Parts for the default theme

White Tie · 09-10-2007, 04:39 AM

I've had some requests for alternate bits and pieces for the default theme, so I'm going to pop them up here as and when I do them... Please feel free to hack & swap if these are useful to you.

kicking off with:

white MCP buttons

and some blank Toolbar buttons

blank Transport buttons

White Tie · 09-10-2007, 05:49 AM

blank transport buttons cont...}

jaydottcomm · 09-10-2007, 08:03 AM

I like these better....but now i would like to have the panels match...The silver buttons look a bit weird sitting on green tint.

jaydottcomm · 09-10-2007, 08:04 AM

also the transport buttons would also look cool with this steel effect and faders ;0)

pjs · 09-10-2007, 10:33 PM

The white MCP buttons are very nice!

Art Evans · 09-11-2007, 02:10 AM

Alternative light-up icons for the toolbar - where appropriate - would be nice - I mean, for those denoting a state. Personally I like those state indications to zap me right between the eyes without having really to look at the icon.

White Tie · 09-11-2007, 02:45 AM

Sure thing art - how about this?

[img]http://img508.**************/img508/8771/toolbarreddownsae7.png[/img]

Jed · 09-11-2007, 03:45 AM

Very nice WT!

Cheers
Jed

Art Evans · 09-11-2007, 04:01 AM

So much more tasteful than my own effort! Many thanks! (Heck, it's not only the developer who is responsive in this community - and I realise WT has other things to do....)

Del Pedro · 09-11-2007, 04:02 AM

These variations are great. They would be perfect if we got batch files for easy replacement as Youn provided them for his younsoft theme

teej813 · 09-11-2007, 09:50 AM

Really nice, WT! I prefer the red too... easier to see. If you don't mind, i may try to modify your mute/solo buttons so they use orange & red. That coloring makes more sense to my pea-brain.

EDIT: Oops... i meant.. orange & green.

tj

White Tie · 09-11-2007, 02:52 PM

Thanks guys. RE batch files: sorry, turning on my computer is a technically difficult task for me, so that? No chance

Teej - I'll do it if you like, just give me swatches of colour.

White Tie · 09-11-2007, 03:35 PM

Pale scrollbars:

[img]http://img211.**************/img211/623/scrollbarvf3.png[/img]

airon · 09-11-2007, 04:46 PM

Nice work.

I've put the pale buttons in there. They integrate really well with my modified MCP background, which is light grey.

The golden sliders fit great too. The new icons do a good job too for me. Thanks a lot.

teej813 · 09-11-2007, 05:00 PM

That's nice of you to offer, WT. Are you sure you have time?

I guess i was thinking white mute & solo for the off-state. Mute could be red when on.. that would match the on-state of the toolbar buttons and would look nice, i think. For solo, the green of the fx on button would be perfect. (i mis-spoke in my earlier post. i meant green)

No biggie, really, and i understand if you don't have time. I just find my eyes drawn to the mute buttons even when tracks aren't muted. Seems like white for off-state would be less distracting.

Got another question for ya, bud. I'm curious about the gradient orientation of the vertical scrollbar. Seems like you'd wanna turn that so it runs from left to right. What was your thinking on that?

tj

RokkD · 09-11-2007, 05:49 PM

WT, thanks for the new red toolbar buttons.....now, should I drag the old buttons out of the folder and replace with the new ones, or can I just dump them in with the old ones..

--

teej813 · 09-11-2007, 07:01 PM

They have the same filenames, Rokk. So if you drag them into the folder, the old ones will be replaced with the new ones.

If you think you might want to keep the old ones, move them someplace for safekeeping first.

tj

RokkD · 09-11-2007, 07:33 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by teej813

If you think you might want to keep the old ones, move them someplace for safekeeping first.

tj

Thanks tj, I think I'll do that.

--

Art Evans · 09-12-2007, 04:02 AM

Or save the whole original folder as "Default Original" or whatever.

Del Pedro · 09-12-2007, 05:12 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by White Tie

RE batch files: sorry, turning on my computer is a technically difficult task for me, so that? No chance

I don't know anything about computers, but here is my try (I used You's files as a template). Put the files in the ColorThemes/Default folder.
The replacement of the toolbar buttons seems to work (what are the blank buttons for?), the replacement of the mcp buttons seems to work more or less (stashbox is down right now so I can't compare my result with the screenshot).

White Tie · 09-12-2007, 06:02 AM

Thanks loads Del Pedro!

White Mute / Solo as requested:

[img]http://img204.**************/img204/4794/whitemutesolold2.png[/img]

Del Pedro · 09-12-2007, 06:30 AM

Here's the update for the white mute/solo buttons.

teej813 · 09-12-2007, 09:53 AM

Cool. Thanks, WT! I don't want to, in any way, minimize the beauty of your original default theme, but these couple minor changes have taken it over the top for me. I love it!

Nice work, bud, and thank you!

tj

Del Pedro · 09-12-2007, 10:28 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by White Tie

[img]http://img204.**************/img204/4794/whitemutesolold2.png[/img]

There's a small misalignment at the lower side of the buttons. It looks to me as if the border of the mute button is too thick there.

White Tie · 09-13-2007, 04:23 AM

Well spotted, thanks! Please re-download...

Lagiv · 09-13-2007, 04:52 AM

This is awesome stuff. IMHO those toolbar icons with the red downs could be added for Reaper 2.0 final - they're just so much more distinct.

teej813 · 09-13-2007, 08:26 AM

Without doubt, this is my favorite theme, and i'd definately recommend that the tweaks posted here be included in the official v2 default theme.

I hope you don't mind, WT, but i tweaked your scrollbar.png file so the verticle bars are rounded like the hor ones are. Hope that's ok.

tj

loppa · 09-13-2007, 08:41 AM

im a fan of the default , but red on green toolbars , yack, looks like a crxxtms tree, i don´t think it needs 2 colors ..

Alex Stone · 09-13-2007, 11:56 AM

Got to say at this point that the default gets better every day. (imho) So easy to look at and work with.

Thanks WT, for me at least, great work.

Alex.

argee · 09-13-2007, 01:06 PM

I really like the new default theme. It has a smooth, professional feel to it. Also liking the alternate buttons. Once again, thanks WT for a stellar effort!

One thing that occured to me is that, given that it's the default theme, perhaps there should be a border on the track name by default. A new user would not necessarily know that there's a place to enter a track name if it's not obvious.

Just a suggestion...

RokkD · 09-13-2007, 05:46 PM

The new red toolbar buttons are just the ticket, my music even sounds better now....haa!

okay, now then...

I want to try to overlay my old color theme over the new gui,(just to see how it looks) keeping all the buttons and whatnot......trouble is, it sometimes takes me quite awhile to get back to where I was, so is it possible, or do I have to start from scratch with this new gui.

edit: never mind, I got it.

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antiClick · 09-14-2007, 08:14 AM

Excellent work WT!
This brought something really cool.

Attached it is...
http://canreco.com/4sawers/reaper/Default_lighter.zip

mr. moon · 09-14-2007, 07:31 PM

Awesome theme A-Click!

-mr moon

Ben Zero · 09-14-2007, 07:47 PM

Thanks antiClick - and of course WT - really liking that.

Does anyone know how to solve the disappearing crossfading waveforms problem? I think all themes have this issue, but I'm not 100% sure...

Simply, if you crossfade two items, you can't see one of the item's waveforms within the crossfade, as you should be able to. The only way I know of to remedy this is to switch on the waveform 'fancy peaks', but I generally find those distracting.

I'm assuming this is an issue with the way REAPER currently handles this stuff, rather than with specific themes. But if anyone knows a way to sort it out, I'd love to know!

Thanks

Ben

noone · 09-15-2007, 02:42 AM

well you know I appreciate all white ties themes, i think they are steller. a couple things about this that bother me and I'd like to change myself are:

1. move the virticle volume fader left one or two pixels
2. Get rid of extra two pixels on upper right corners of buttons (including main toolbar)
3. also some extra pixels within the fx on/off button on the mcp lower left corner, and the thing seems centered a tiny bit too far to the right
4. Folder collapse graphics don't really fit the theme imo
5. There should be an extra column of black pixels on far left side of the transport rewind (home) button, as well as the tcp IO button (ust darken up the faint gray line that's there)
...
7. the rate fader thumb could be one pixel higher to match the tcp volume fader thumbs
...
9. docker tabs i think should match the color of the window (light gray instead of blue) to stand out a bit more and look seamless
10. scrollbar graphic could use improvements. They are just generally inconsistent around edges
11. folder icons look like houses an reminds me of monopoly (the tabs are just too pointy for my tastes)

all this being said I think it's the bext "default" theme for this prog I seen. I especially like how the shapes of buttons echo the marker shapes and how well it ties in with the arrange window. it all just looks very "appropriate" for this program

White Tie · 09-15-2007, 04:36 AM

Thanks man, and lots of very good points here...

Quote:

Originally Posted by noone

1. move the virticle volume fader left one or two pixels
2. Get rid of extra two pixels on upper right corners of buttons (including main toolbar)
3. also some extra pixels within the fx on/off button on the mcp lower left corner, and the thing seems centered a tiny bit too far to the right
4. Folder collapse graphics don't really fit the theme imo
5. There should be an extra column of black pixels on far left side of the transport rewind (home) button, as well as the tcp IO button (ust darken up the faint gray line that's there)
...
7. the rate fader thumb could be one pixel higher to match the tcp volume fader thumbs
...
9. docker tabs i think should match the color of the window (light gray instead of blue) to stand out a bit more and look seamless
10. scrollbar graphic could use improvements. They are just generally inconsistent around edges
11. folder icons look like houses an reminds me of monopoly (the tabs are just too pointy for my tastes)

...and they do raise some more fundamental points that have been on my mind, from the standpoint of 'I'm here to do what you lot want'.

Reaper theming is great, a really satisfying experience, and I urge anyone with any interest to get stuck in. But there are some realities; I had to get this theme finished! It takes a lot of grunt work to churn out a full theme, particularly if you include all the failed experiments. If I can refer you to my coffee & cream theme: I had to figure out how this new 'advanced theming' worked, experiment for the most efficient dimensions, make all my templates and then go through the laborious process that every themer knows of churning out all the buttons in all their states. Released to a giant chorus of 'meh' from the world at large. C'est la vie, but I could have spent far longer on that theme, I'm really glad I didn't

I haven't updated my Cornish themes to V2 yet, which kills me because they represent a staggering investment of time, but that's just the way the cookie crumbles. The Reaper community is brutal but honest, one can aim to please 50% of them at best and we have a development cycle that means there's always some cool new shit to play with rather than pixel tweaking (and who doesn't like fun?

)

If I can get a theme 90% right in 10% of the time, that's what I do, which is a radical departure from my usual design ethic, and certainly not what I was expecting at the start of this journey. But a Reaper theme has a limited life span, and there seems to be more taste for variation than refinement amongst the users. If any theme is going to get the full spit and polish, its this one, but up till now no one has asked, there's been more demand for alterations and so forth. You want it? Excellent. But I'd be grateful for a little more evidence that its not just you and me who notice these things...

If you'd like to do any of these little nips and tucks for me, it would be met with nothing but my heartfelt gratitude. Please, be my guest!

Please no one take this as whinging, and I'm grateful for useful feedback. But I would like it put on record that I too could do better, given an infinite amount of time.

If anyone wants to know how to give us themers useful feedback, noone's post above is EXACTLY it. The time it takes to make a theme is going up, my impression is the morale amongst themers is going down (I hope I'm wrong), probably not helped by those who come to this forum to say "all the themes are crap, I want PRO and l333t cos I'm 12 and my mum says I deserve it".

Quote:

Originally Posted by noone

I especially like how the shapes of buttons echo the marker shapes

Woo - I was hoping someone would notice that

In the meantime; white TCP buttons are incoming...

noone · 09-15-2007, 06:34 AM

ok, here's some tweaks to consider (see attachment)

Here's what I did fyi:
- Volume and Pan thumbs for tcp and mcp just repositioned and hard shadow softened a bit (so it's less noticable when over bg)
- mcp volume fader background right edge shifted over 1 pixel so now we get that zero mark like all other faders have
- upper right corner 2-pixel nibbled on all buttons except main toolbar (and I may've missed some lol)
- transport home and next buttons: cleaned up edges and corners
- fx empty/on/off buttons for mcp left highlight consistent all the way down

ok, i'm running out of time otherwise i'd do more tweaks - you know how it is

Alex Stone · 09-15-2007, 07:17 AM

2 Roubles worth.

This is a strictly personal choice, but i find the default theme you have built to be more than suitable for my criteria, and indeed enjoyable to gaze at as well. I have no wish to see it changed, or tweaked. My opinion is you've presented a complete, professional, well designed, face, that enhances Reaper, and enables me to work for longer without getting tired. It's that simple. I have no wish to kiss your backside, or in some way ingratiate myself with you. But credit where it's due from a personal perspective. I've been staring at Daw's a long time now, and suffered much at the hands of those who managed to some how turn elegance into nightmare.

It is a thoroughly refreshing and rewarding change to work without a headache, blurred vision, colour madness, or rising sense of frustration when writing. I get none of that with this theme, quite the pleasurable opposite and that's why i say I will say thank you. Your fine work, and elegant sense of design works for me.

The time, skill and effort you have put into this is NOT wasted on those who have the sense, intelligence, and creative acumen to gauge these things from an objective perspective.

My appreciation and respects,

Alex.

Lawrence · 09-15-2007, 09:41 AM

Default_Light is really sweet. Thanks.

White Tie · 09-15-2007, 02:37 PM

Thanks people.

Noone.... stunned mate. On the floor. Thank you so, so much