Old 10-03-2019, 01:36 AM   #1
The Utter East
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Default Theming newbie needing help

So I've decided to start using themes but, as I'm sure you all find as well, there's no such thing as a 100% perfect theme, so I'm also trying to tweak a theme a little to make it fit with my style a little better.

The theme I'm using as a base is LCS' bug fix of Alber-C's Solaris theme. For me is 90% of the way to perfect, with just a few tweaks needed to get it there. I love the old-school, physical desk aesthetics, but I like the way that the meters are still by the fader. It makes sense to me to have the meters at the end of the desk if you're using a physical desk because that's as close to the sound source as they can get and there's a tactile element to moving the fader that just isn't the same in a DAW. Conversely, it makes sense for the meters to be in the same place as the faders in a DAW, because that's where your eyeline is going to be.

The biggest problem for me is that it's not easy enough to tell at a glance which track you have selected. The coolest and most elegant solution I've seen to that problem is from LCS's mod of White Tie's Imperial theme, where the groove that the fader sits in lights up. It fits the aesthetic and really stands out without being intrusive.

So I took the image from that theme, cut out the lit up fader groove, cut and stretched it to fit, and placed it on every iteration of mcp channel image that I could find that also included the term "sel". This accomplished nothing noticeable. Wondering if the problem was that for some reason the "sel" images were being hidden behind the non-"sel" images, I then made the fader grooves of all the non-"sel" images transparent. Now there's a very, very faint lighting up of the groove, but you have to struggle to see it. I don't know if that was true before I took the last step.

Deciding to try something else, I decided to see if I could implement my next-most-needed item - a separator layout. They're an incredibly useful way to reduce faffing around time when you're mixing. So I searched the forums and found this thread, in which the very kind user bobobo has provided script to go in the reconfig file that should create one. I put them in the rtconfig file, in the correct places, and...nothing. No such layout option exists.

So I thought I'd go for something really easy and change a couple of colours. I re-coloured the meter images and a fader image. But even that...nothing. There appears to be nothing in the rtconfig file that would override the png files, and the files with the original colours no longer exist in the new theme folder (which I have completely renamed from the original theme and which I've tried both having unzipped in the correct directory with an identially-named ReaperTheme file, and re-zipped back together with a ReaperThemeZip extension).

I can only surmise that the colour thing is an issue with it being overridden by the commands I see when I open the "ReaperTheme" file in a text editor, but I can't find any explanation anywhere online of what those commands actually mean or what I should be looking at to change.

I've read every link in this how-to thread and, as far as I can tell, everything I've done should work. So now I'm lost. Can any kind soul tell me where I'm going wrong?

Last edited by The Utter East; 10-03-2019 at 02:50 AM.
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Old 10-03-2019, 10:22 AM   #2
lucas_LCS
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Quote:
Originally Posted by The Utter East
.... it's not easy enough to tell at a glance which track you have selected. The coolest and most elegant solution I've seen to that problem is from LCS's mod of White Tie's Imperial theme, where the groove that the fader sits in lights up. It fits the aesthetic and really stands out without being intrusive.
The lit up fader line is from White Tie's original Imperial theme.

Before you do anything:
- unzip or unpack the theme
- move the original theme file to a backup folder.
- rename the file and folder to signify it's a mod
- load the theme. open the theme tweaker, browse to the new image folder then save the theme.

Attached to this message (attachment has been removed) is a zip of the four files that allow this style to be used in Solaris Bug-fix theme.
unpack the Zip file and drop the 4 files into the image folder for your mod of Solaris Bug-fix theme:
mcp_main_namebg_sel.png
mcp_namebg.png
mcp_bgsel.png
mcp_mainbgsel.png

no coding shold be needed.

Quote:
Originally Posted by The Utter East
Deciding to try something else, I decided to see if I could implement my next-most-needed item - a separator layout.
create a new folder and call it SEPARATOR.
put copies of the mcp_bg.png and the mcp_bgsel.png in that folder.
now open those copies and delete the current graphics
then color the image the color you want for your separator.
You will need to add a separator layout to RTCONFIG file in the image folder.
I usually include a few additional items in my separators, but the code be basic as:

Layout "Separator" "Separator"
clear mcp.*
set mcp.size [88 848]
set mcp.extmixer.mode [1]
set mcp.extmixer.position [0]
Endlayout



Quote:
Originally Posted by The Utter East
So I thought I'd go for something really easy and change a couple of colours. I re-coloured the meter images and a fader image. But even that...nothing.
this should be fixed by "Before you do anything" section I wrote above.

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Last edited by lucas_LCS; 03-17-2020 at 08:33 PM. Reason: removed attachment
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Old 10-03-2019, 02:32 PM   #3
The Utter East
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Thank you.

I won't have time to try this before tomorrow, but I wanted to say thank you as soon as I read it.
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Old 10-04-2019, 06:59 AM   #4
The Utter East
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Done. Thank you so much. It's worked for everything except for the separators. Following your steps has created a separator layout, but just seems to have made the graphics misaligned: https://i.imgur.com/pGMm23Y.png

I also noticed that in the other instances of code that rather than "*clear.mcp" it was "clear.mcp.*" so I tried that as well, but with no success.

Last edited by The Utter East; 10-04-2019 at 08:09 AM.
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Old 10-04-2019, 09:42 AM   #5
lucas_LCS
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Quote:
Originally Posted by The Utter East View Post
Done. Thank you so much. It's worked for everything except for the separators. Following your steps has created a separator layout, but just seems to have made the graphics misaligned: https://i.imgur.com/pGMm23Y.png

I also noticed that in the other instances of code that rather than "*clear.mcp" it was "clear.mcp.*" so I tried that as well, but with no success.
apologies, the separator code I posted above has errors.
try this:

Layout "Separator" "Separator"
clear mcp.*
set mcp.size [88 848]
set mcp.extmixer.mode [1]
set mcp.extmixer.position [0]
Endlayout


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Old 10-05-2019, 12:05 AM   #6
The Utter East
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With a couple of minor tweaks to the dimensions that's perfect, thank you. I very much appreciate you taking the time to help me.
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