Old 05-06-2017, 09:14 AM   #1
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Default Retina Themes for Mac

I'm looking for retina themes for Mac and I can't seem to find any apart from the Default 5.0 hidpi theme... I guess it's because I'm not looking in the right places, or is that the only one available at the moment?

Thanks heaps.

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Old 05-10-2017, 03:17 AM   #2
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I'm also interested in Retina themes but I think that it's still too new so there are none around yet, except for the default one.
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Old 05-10-2017, 06:16 AM   #3
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They will stay rare too, Reapers themes are based on images, if a themer now has to go back and remake their entire theme to support Retina, its unlikely at best.
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Old 05-10-2017, 07:35 AM   #4
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gpunk_w: they don't necessarily need to stay too rare... Any new themes can be designed with Retina/HiDPI in mind and updating old themes to support Retina might be as "easy" as re-rendering the source vector graphics (if exist) into higher-resolution bitmaps.
I guess it will depend whether the theme author himself uses a Retina display.
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Old 05-10-2017, 07:21 PM   #5
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1st dont assume all themes are vector creations, i hand paint all of mine.
2nd there is no "as easy as" with Reaper theming.
3rd there is no convention for what to do with these hi def displays, for instance somethings should be made bigger, but others do not, and a lot of that will be personal choice.


What will happen here is that hi def theming will have the same effect that WALTER did when it first arrived, stop a ton of people from theming, A because of all the extra work and B because there will be no pleasing anybody haha
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Old 05-10-2017, 07:47 PM   #6
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I'm waiting for HiDPI themes as well. But in the meantime, I'd settle for themers doing HiDPI versions with their existing bitmaps (scaled up x2 then scaled back down by the theme) so that all the text is much clearer. Then they could phase in various high-resolution bitmaps through updates.
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Old 05-10-2017, 11:31 PM   #7
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Why would the text be clearer ?
Scaling up and scaling down will give you nothing clearer at all, all the images would have to be re drawn with the text twice the size, scaling up will just give you a scaled up blurry text, photo editors cant magically upscale imagery with no artefacts.
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Old 05-11-2017, 03:57 AM   #8
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Quote:
Originally Posted by gpunk_w View Post
Why would the text be clearer ?
Because the OS would draw it at HiDPI.
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Old 05-11-2017, 04:15 AM   #9
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Quote:
Originally Posted by gpunk_w View Post
1st dont assume all themes are vector creations
That's why I said "if exist"

Quote:
Originally Posted by gpunk_w View Post
2nd there is no "as easy as" with Reaper theming.
That's why I put quotes around "easy" - I have no idea how easy/hard this is but I secretly hope it's not prohibitively difficult

Quote:
Originally Posted by gpunk_w View Post
3rd there is no convention for what to do with these hi def displays
This could only be a matter of time.

It might be wishful thinking - but I personally think, sooner or later, Reaper UI has to become scalable (Retina/HiDPI friendly) in order to maintain its popularity.
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Old 05-11-2017, 04:47 AM   #10
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Quote:
Originally Posted by nixx View Post
I have no idea how easy/hard this is but I secretly hope it's not prohibitively difficult
You were spot on. That's literally all it takes.

If you want themers to make HiDef themes utilising the current experimental Reaper HiDef functionality, they just need to want to do it. Is the demand there yet? I don't know, how long is a piece of string?

Its going to happen sooner or later.
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Old 05-11-2017, 08:37 AM   #11
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Because the OS would draw it at HiDPI.
What ?
You are suggesting that any image, upscaled 2x in a photo editor will then be clearer on HiDPI, that simply isn't the case, the image will have to be resaved twice the size with the text/imagery at twice the size while it is/if it is vector based.
Maybe you have some magical photo editor that can upscale with zero artefacts, actually if that is the case then Reaper support for HiDPI should work with any theme that ever existed ever, just get Reaper to do this Magical 2x upscaling before it even loads the theme, then the OS can draw it as HiDPI.



Note here that the downscale back to original was done in a photo editor and not using resized vectors on the vector based 2x resize, this is how it would have to work if downscaling is taking place by the OS on any higher res imagery, the OS does not magically have a vector based version of everything that ever existed since we started banging the rocks together.
But even then, the 2x resaved vector font vs the upscaled/downscaled bitmap imagery has a vast chasm in difference.

There is no magic bullet formula other than saving all needed imagery at twice the size by repainting if painted bitmaps, or just resaving if vector based, not all themes are designed in vector, so my original point stands.
Just proclaiming something as easy to do, does not make it so, and no, themers do not just have to "Want to do it" if the theme was not designed in vectors and easily resavable in other sizes, HiDPI support means a lot of extra work, then again, maybe you are all happy with the obviously blurry text above ?

Note this is all from JayJSE2 saying to just upscale the current bitmaps
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Old 05-11-2017, 08:47 AM   #12
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Quote:
Originally Posted by gpunk_w View Post
What ?
You are suggesting that any image, upscaled 2x in a photo editor will then be clearer on HiDPI, that simply isn't the case, the image will have to be resaved twice the size with the text at twice the size while it is vector based.
I mean all the system text (like track names and FX inserts). It might not seem like much, but it makes things way more legible.

I have no idea whether there would be any noticeable difference (better or worse) for re-scaled images.
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Old 05-11-2017, 08:57 AM   #13
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I posted the image to show how much difference there would be with rescaled images, and like i said, if it was just a case of upscaling and downscaling the imagery, you can trust that the developers at Cockos would have done that very thing, they didn't because it is simply not that case at all, themers have to do it.

I am not saying they shouldn't, what i am saying is it is not a magic switch type deal here, where themers just "want to have to do it"
That is a complete nonsense, themers are not generally nasty or mean people, they do all this for free, if it was simply a case of "Just want to do it" they would all do it, trust me on that.

System text has nothing to do with themers in this regard and is all vector based, so not relevant.
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Old 05-11-2017, 09:58 AM   #14
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Quote:
Originally Posted by gpunk_w View Post
I posted the image to show how much difference there would be with rescaled images, and like i said, if it was just a case of upscaling and downscaling the imagery, you can trust that the developers at Cockos would have done that very thing, they didn't because it is simply not that case at all, themers have to do it.
Well yeah, I'm not saying that doing that will make everything higher resolution, but for any text that's not inside an image (like track names as opposed to the mute and solo buttons) scaling the theme would make the text easier to read (see attached image). Scaling up the images beforehand would just be so that they don't end up really tiny when the entire theme is scaled.
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File Type: png HiDPI vs normal text.png (8.7 KB, 347 views)
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Old 05-11-2017, 10:11 AM   #15
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OK, lets start again. Here's what he was saying:

If people made themes with resampled bitmaps:
  • The text would be clearer.
  • Even though the bitmaps wouldn't.
  • Which would be something.

He was correct.
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Old 05-11-2017, 10:50 AM   #16
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One thing that might work without too much effort is themes that already use larger images. I've started trying this on a theme, but I can't make it work properly. Any tips on how exactly to scale the theme and how to mod themes without them breaking (for some reason it loses the path to the images)?
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Old 05-11-2017, 12:24 PM   #17
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Quote:
Originally Posted by White Tie View Post
OK, lets start again. Here's what he was saying:

If people made themes with resampled bitmaps:
  • The text would be clearer.
  • Even though the bitmaps wouldn't.
  • Which would be something.

He was correct.
Of course you are completely wrong or wording this completely wrong, im assuming (because you are not being clear) that you mean that any text that is rendered by Reaper itself via system fonts would be clearer, that is not what was said and is also rather ridiculous to assume all text in Reaper themes are using Reaper rendered text, maybe they are in yours, but rarely are the majority of text in themes being Rendered by Reaper.

So yes lets start again...
Text that is rendered by Reaper using system fonts would be clearer, any other text would not.

That is correct.
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Old 05-11-2017, 12:56 PM   #18
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Quote:
Originally Posted by gpunk_w View Post
That is correct.
But then why would the text be clearer?
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Old 05-11-2017, 01:06 PM   #19
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Depending if they are using oversampling/antialiasing, even system fonts will be clearer at HiDPI.
Pretty sure that is one of the stated goals of Retina ?
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Old 05-11-2017, 01:12 PM   #20
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...
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Old 05-11-2017, 01:17 PM   #21
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Is that smile because i am wrong, because clearer text was one of the selling points when i bought my Retina screen, i didnt do extensive research in to if it was multisampled or antialiasing they were using, but im guessing from that smile that Apple were lying then ?
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Old 05-11-2017, 02:07 PM   #22
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Update on my post from earlier on:

When I add "global_scale 2.0" to the rtconfig file, it seems like the text scales fine, along with the volume fader, but everything else stays exactly the same (before resizing everything). Am I missing something?
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