WalterTheme&API: Custom Buttons, Textfields, Sliders, etc.

[Meo-Ada Mespotine]

Time and again, I run into the wish of having the ability to add my own custom-buttons/sliders/etc to my theme.
For instance, I have a set of vst-plugins, that I would love to load by clicking a button on a track or add other nice and important stuff to the Transport-panel.
Especially with the new scripting-possibilities using the theme-layout-functions and the massive changes for Reaper v6, this would be another killer customize feature.

How I think it could be done.

Theme
You can add, let's say, up to 32 custom-elements to a Theme-element.
In the rt-config, a button and a caption could be added to a track like:

 tcp.custom1 "button" x y w h
 tcp.custom2 "caption=This is a button" x y w h
 tcp.custom2 "slider=minval,maxval,default,stepsize" x y w h

So it's
themelement.customxxx "type of element like button, slider, etc" x y width height

themeelement is the usual themeelements Walter supports like mcp, tcp, trans, etc

This could be themed as all other theme-elements(buttons, captions), but with the difference, that they're not "linked" to a feature/an action by default.

Set and Action to this theme-element
Now, how can we trigger scripts/actions. For that I would suggest to treat them like shortcuts.
So I go into the ActionList-window, select an action, select AddShortcut and when the dialog opens which asks for the shortcut, you click on the custom-element(in our case, the clickable button).
So everytime the button gets clicked, it will run the associated action with it.

Scripting/coding the action behind the theme-element
Now, how to program the scripts behind that.
I would suggest a new function "get_action_context2", which returns:
custom_theme_elementname - like tcp.custom1
object_id - the track/obejct number, in which one clicked the button/etc.
min_value - the minimum value for this element
max_value - the maximum value for this element
current value - 0,1 for buttons, min_value to max_value for buttons

With that, this could be codeable in a quite extensive way and would help us tons.


This is my current idea, how this could be done, but I'm open for better ones that could do things even easier for devs, scripters, themers and users.

[Meo-Ada Mespotine]

Ping.


(Pong)

[Meo-Ada Mespotine]

Bumperoni

[tdc]

Originally Posted by mespotine

Bumperoni

I was looking around the theme info only just last night for something like this!

Would be fantastic!

[_Stevie_]

+1 and bumpalicious

[Distressor]

I've been hoping for something like this for years now.

+1

[fernsehmuell]

+1

bumpbumpbump

[Meo-Ada Mespotine]

+1 BumpBump Kriss Kross will make ya BumpBump

[myfeltgood]

This sure would beat an update dedicated to metadata. 🙄

[AndrewFalcon]

Great idea! +1

[OLSHALOM]

THAT WOULD BE SO GREAT!! +1

[Vagelis]

Bump with a +1! just found this thread and it's something i had in mind as well, would be great if we could add buttons/actions to TCP or media items.
Maybe a customizable media item toolbar would be easier?

[Pink Wool]

Here's my +1

[WyattRice]

Yes! +1

[Phazma]

Not sure if I understand the request but would this allow to add custom buttons to WALTERablte areas (eg. tcp) and assign actions from the action list to them?

If yes, then big +1!

[Meo-Ada Mespotine]

Originally Posted by Phazma

Not sure if I understand the request but would this allow to add custom buttons to WALTERablte areas (eg. tcp) and assign actions from the action list to them?

If yes, then big +1!

Yes, that's the idea. So we can have our own elements, that allow functionality the devs wouldn't want to implement as "official" Reaper feature.

So you could add a button/slider/etc to tcp or mcp or transport, etc and associate your own action to it, designed to fit your need.

[Phazma]

Originally Posted by Meo-Ada Mespotine

So you could add a button/slider/etc to tcp or mcp or transport, etc and associate your own action to it, designed to fit your need.

Yeah full support then!

While I can totally imagine it with buttons, how would it be applied with sliders? Aren't all Reaper actions just triggered by running them as if pressing a button? Any example of what could be tweaked by a slider?

[Meo-Ada Mespotine]

Originally Posted by Phazma

Yeah full support then!

While I can totally imagine it with buttons, how would it be applied with sliders? Aren't all Reaper actions just triggered by running them as if pressing a button? Any example of what could be tweaked by a slider?

As mentioned, ReaScript would get a new function, that returns the value of the theme-element, e.g. slider. So if you move the slider to a new value, the script could read out the value and act accordingly.
So sliders must be programmed to be fully supported and wouldn't necessarily work out of the box with regular actions within my proposal.
Though enabling actions that are designed for input-devices like mousewheel could be possible with sliders as well, depending on the value range set in the theme for this slider.

For buttons, I could imagine, that it allows toggling actions with toggle-state as well, but that's for the devs to decide.

[Phazma]

Oh I see, so for example a theme could be made that has a slider on the transport area which can be coupled with a script that adjusts BPM based on dragging such a slider. That would result in a theme where it is conveniently possible to adjust BPM by dragging a slider rather than typing it in or having to rely on scrolling.

I suspect adding such a support for theme sliders in reascript may be a bit complex to do and not that straightforward for users as themes will have to be matched with scripts and not always themers and scripters are the same people, but I would certainly appreciate if the devs made that effort for those who are willing to experiment with this.

Regarding buttons in my opinion it is much simpler because it could be used with any action and no extra scripting support needed. Of course I expect toggling to be possible too. Such buttons on the Walter surfaces should in my opinion behave just like toolbar buttons.

[todoublez]

brilliant idea ! +1

[Vagalume]

Really useful