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Old 08-28-2018, 12:11 PM   #1
vanhaze
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Default HiDPI Themes: Is it really much work for a Themer ?

I am wondering if it is really much work for a Reaper Themer to make a HiDPI version of his Theme. (Apple Retina compatible).

As a macbook retina user, i really notice the positive difference between a retina compatible Theme and a "normal" Theme:
It is so much more beautiful looking, really sharp, really defined.

Or is it even possible to maky my own retina compatible version of a Theme i really like ?
Or is this just do-able for Rocket Scientists ?!

BTW: I am honestyl willing to pay a Themer good money to make a retina version of a (non retina) Theme i really like.

I hope 2 hear from ya !
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Old 08-28-2018, 01:10 PM   #2
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From what I've heard from a lot of themers on this forum, (kind of ironically) they don't have HiDPI displays and so they physically can't create a full theme (as positions of things get messed up when setting the "global_scale" in RTconfig to 2.0).

I had a quick go at starting to upscale some themes last night, but I doubt I'd be able to do a RADO theme justice as it's (somewhat) photorealistic and all I'm really doing is resizing the images and editing in larger text. I did find that Concerto (https://stash.reaper.fm/theme/1993/C...ReaperThemeZip) is easier to upscale, as it's almost completely 2d, but even once I'm finished with it, it would probably look better if the images were upscaled by someone who actually knew what they were doing.
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Old 08-28-2018, 01:18 PM   #3
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I wanna thank you for your answer but your answer is completely abacadabra to me, being a total noob in Reaper Theming / graphics / upscaling etc etc.
I don't know really what you are all talkin' about, i have totally no clue about graphics
and graphics terminology..

Maybe a simple expanation of what "upscaling" a Reaper Theme for making it a HiDPI version actually means ..

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Old 08-28-2018, 01:41 PM   #4
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Quote:
Originally Posted by vanhaze View Post
Maybe a simple expanation of what "upscaling" a Reaper Theme for making it a HiDPI version actually means ..
Depending on the theme, it might mean having over 500 Reaper theme images which you'll have to manually edit (resize at least). And also change the appropriate size and position definitions for those images in the theme configuration file. It's quite literally reconstructing the theme and like JayJSE2 said, if you don't have a HiDPI display, you won't be able to even start with it...unless you want to guess what the end result will really look like.
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Old 08-28-2018, 01:52 PM   #5
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Ahaa, now it's all much clearer to me xpander, thank you for your help !
Ouch Ouch, that sounds like an awful lot of work
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Old 08-28-2018, 10:23 PM   #6
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I am aware of the METRIC Theme.
Sorry, totally not my cup of tea ..
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Old 08-28-2018, 10:54 PM   #7
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Hi, vanhaze

As you already requested this for one of my themes, I can only confirm what xpander and JayJSE2 already stated : doing HiDPI version of a theme means more or less a complete rewriting of it (images, rtconfig.txt adjustments...) and this is not conceivable without an adapted monitor (1920 x 1200, here...).

Beside this and before answering, I have taken a more in depth view of this thread : it's a mess, as apparently, HiDPI on Windows isn't working the same way as Retina, so this would mean (if I understood well...) that there would be the need to create two versions of a theme to cover all the possible HiDPI cases. This, with the fonts display issues, plug-ins that are not scaled rightly, etc.

It's a pity, as I truely would have liked to be able to do so. Actually, and if I could, I would first try this on my AbbeyRoad theme, as I remember being often frustrated by the lack of place when positioning the different controls, especially in the mixer strips. Guess that having vector graphics within Reaper would solve a lot of problems, but well : as Justin said himself, it's not for tomorrow...
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Old 08-28-2018, 10:57 PM   #8
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Thank you for your clear and helpful answer cubic13 !
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Old 08-31-2018, 05:18 PM   #9
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Something that I have found while (briefly) trying to upscale the RADO theme that was posted a few days ago, is that if the exact positions and sizes of the images are already in the rtconfig file, things don't seem to break.

So if a themer makes 2x scaled versions of all the images (or at least any important ones, as everything else should stay in exactly the same place) and codes the exact sizes and positions into the rtconfig file, then they should be able to release HiDPI themes without a HiDPI monitor.
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Old 09-06-2018, 11:46 AM   #10
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some folks in the theme-ing community may be waiting for vector support... meaning no more bitmaps and everything scales beautifully. This is the next big thing in UI design, already being adopted by web standards and some other big apps, and to do an in-between solution like "retina" is a waste of time and energy.

and the percentage of people complaining about pixelated UIs is not very high (apparently), so there's not much demand for it.
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Old 09-06-2018, 05:09 PM   #11
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Tomm View Post
some folks in the theme-ing community may be waiting for vector support... meaning no more bitmaps and everything scales beautifully. This is the next big thing in UI design, already being adopted by web standards and some other big apps, and to do an in-between solution like "retina" is a waste of time and energy.

and the percentage of people complaining about pixelated UIs is not very high (apparently), so there's not much demand for it.
I doubt it... Justin's already said that there are no immediate plans for vector support, and (as long as my findings from my last post are correct) it's actually not that difficult to create a HiDPI theme (assuming that the themer is the one creating the images, not just modding the theme)

Also, just because people aren't complaining doesn't mean people don't want it.
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Old 09-06-2018, 05:39 PM   #12
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Also, just because people aren't complaining doesn't mean people don't want it.
Along with theming support on all areas, yes, many users want those.

Maybe for reaper 7.
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Old 09-07-2018, 07:14 AM   #13
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Quote:
Originally Posted by JayJSE2 View Post
Also, just because people aren't complaining doesn't mean people don't want it.
Nobody is saying that... and yea I find them-ing very relaxing and not difficult at all, actually puts me in a meditative trance pushing all those pixels and numbers ^_____^

Now, to answer the OP, I'm curious how much you'd be willing to pay. My standard rate is $100/hr and I expect a complete theme to take around 10 hours
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Old 09-07-2018, 09:30 AM   #14
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Do you mean converting an existing Theme to HiDPI version for $ 1000 ?

If that's the case then that's way out of my league.
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Old 09-07-2018, 02:23 PM   #15
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lol, no I wouldn't actually charge anyone for a theme (no beef with those who do though) how much would you be willing to pay, and which theme interests you? if it's a popular one and some others would also get use from it then it might even be done for free

I'd personally wait until after v6 rolls out because big releases have historically included some nice WALTER/themes updates as well
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Old 09-07-2018, 02:31 PM   #16
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Quote:
Originally Posted by vanhaze View Post
Do you mean converting an existing Theme to HiDPI version for $ 1000 ?

If that's the case then that's way out of my league.
What existing themes would you want to see Retina versions of? I'm not making any promises, but I could have a go at (at least) resizing everything and making the text clearer (like the 200% themes that were posted a while ago).
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Old 09-07-2018, 04:09 PM   #17
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For my part, I do not make theme HIDPI because I invested in a computer that I did not need 4k ect I work on 2 x24 '' and for me it satisfies me for the moment, and especially do not believe not that it is enough to enlarge the image x2 to have the result, the resolution of the image must be for a resolution 4 k, otherwise you will go to see a certain blur on the png which for me is more important than all the rest, but on I will spend all my material in 4 k soon because I'd like my theme ke is but still it takes a lot of work if you really want 4k well clear and easy for the eyes p.s bad english
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Old 09-08-2018, 04:57 AM   #18
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I am a big fan from Blankfiles' "Logic alike" Themes and cubic13's "cubase alike" Themes. ( i donated for the iLogic Theme long time ago).

I tried some Themes that were made by someone (sorry, dunno his name anymore) which were 200% scaled modifications of existing Themes.
Unluckily enough there were some serious bugs in these for me,
like way too big Media Item Buttons.
And some graphical glitching that occured when moving a track volume fader in MCP.
So i went away from using these 200% Themes cause these graphical bugs were too annoying for me.

In my long experience as a mac retina user, with using all kinds of Themes, be it normal ones or scaled ones, there always seem to be issues with fontsize and font blurryness of text used in media item labels and toolbar buttons.
As if this is a major mac retina issue regarding Reaper Themes.
Why is it so hard to just have really sharp looking texts in media item labels and toolbar text buttons ..pfffff ....
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Old 09-08-2018, 06:54 AM   #19
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The scaled ones is just a small step helper thingie forward.
I remember Paulie's knob got dDddestroyed in the process so, repainted that and replacing graphics is easy but but.. not fast I am afraid if do that to 200+ images or what have we.

And high res/hidpi is still experimental status I think, hope R6 will bring something about this topic.

Bonus stuff:
https://www.tenforums.com/tutorials/...dows-10-a.html
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Old 09-08-2018, 05:46 PM   #20
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Quote:
Originally Posted by vanhaze View Post
I am a big fan from Blankfiles' "Logic alike" Themes
I started working on something tonight, but I'm not sure if I'm going to be able to share it publicly or not, as I'm basically taking screenshots of Logic X, editing them into individual images and then I'm going to try to swap those into one of the "I Logic" themes
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Old 10-05-2019, 03:29 AM   #21
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Quote:
Originally Posted by doppelganger View Post
It's funny, that people buy expensive monitor to have better crisper view, but instead they get blurry picture, which looks crappier, than on common monitor
Sure, it’s funny, especially since after using retina displays for almost seven years, the only software I’ve run into that didn’t support retina display was Reaper. That’s an achievement since I counted not only other native macOS *paid* software but every freeware as well as non-native software that I compiled from source.

Windows 7 already looked okay in VMWare Fusion at full Retina resolution if you knew a trick. Windows 10 looks great on retina display on a MacBook Pro dual-boot.

The vast majority of the opensource software look good on Retina. I have been running both Ubuntu and FreeBSD installed on virtual machines for many years.

But at the end of 2019, even if I use an HDPI Reaper theme, the numbers above the grid look like if I had a CRT display, and I have to look at the monitor from less than 20cm to see the loudness of the track on the track (left panel) display. And that’s after I tried to change every font the Theme Developer window had.
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Old 10-05-2019, 05:36 AM   #22
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Sadly I get the impression that converting reaper to work with 4k etc would involve a MAJOR rewrite of code. Could be why the tiny dev team is shying away from trying it....
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Old 10-05-2019, 07:29 AM   #23
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Tomm View Post
lol, no I wouldn't actually charge anyone for a theme (no beef with those who do though) how much would you be willing to pay, and which theme interests you? if it's a popular one and some others would also get use from it then it might even be done for free

I'd personally wait until after v6 rolls out because big releases have historically included some nice WALTER/themes updates as well
hi tomm,
so is it possible for u to accept private request with a reasonable paid ?
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