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Old 01-01-2011, 12:33 PM   #81
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Another small try to make the texts in inserts and sends more clear



regards J
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Old 01-01-2011, 12:48 PM   #82
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I think the "dark" gray sections need to be darker and the illuminated button states need to be sharper and more saturated, that's really my only complaint to be honest. Just needs to be more obvious what is clickable and what is turned on or off at a quick glance.
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Old 01-01-2011, 12:56 PM   #83
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OH almost forgot... I seem to no longer have the vertical meters option in tcp... is that missing in this version? can I get it back???
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Old 01-01-2011, 01:23 PM   #84
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Janne83 View Post
Another small try to make the texts in inserts and sends more clear



regards J

looking good!!!

that looks like i could work with it

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Old 01-01-2011, 06:50 PM   #85
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I still don't like the colors below the faders. The labels are not readable to me, more-so when the controls are enabled (e.g. pastel green active FX button over grey gradient)

One more thing, the i/o button, the o looks like a 0 (zero). It's bigger than the i next to it.
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Old 01-01-2011, 08:51 PM   #86
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Quote:
Originally Posted by d. gauss View Post
no need for the grammar police. my use of the word as per webster's:

standard - an object that is regarded as the usual or most common form of its kind.
I'm not being grammar police...I'm just disagreeing with you that it's a standard...in any sense of the word.

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Old 01-02-2011, 03:02 AM   #87
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Ok I'll try and be as constructive as possable.

First of all I can see there's bean great effort in getting the TCP size down which is great , I'm not really fond of the meter under the name as it distracts from reading the name and squashes the name. I simply think having the meters at the right edge is more efficient but with all the layers of code I don't expect anything to change hear. I would also suggest simply having a clip light i.e tiny meter on the rhs of the name as with the inspector layout it is not absolutely necessary to have the full meter displayed on the tcp. But Bravo for considering the laptop users and anyone who wants to retain as much of the arrange page as possible

I'm afraid the expert mixer is "Grotty" I would loose the input and give more info to the important bits i.e. IO and env.

I think the whole thing looks a bit uninspiring it lacks balance and contrast and the color palette is worse than the first but I understand this is subjective

But all in all a step in the right direction in terms of form...
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Old 01-02-2011, 03:57 AM   #88
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i hate the font/look of the [i0] MCP buttons

[IO] or [io] would be better but really it just needs some custom scaling to get the size of the "i" to match the "0"

All IMO

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Old 01-02-2011, 03:00 PM   #89
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i hate the font/look of the [i0] MCP buttons

[IO] or [io] would be better but really it just needs some custom scaling to get the size of the "i" to match the "0"

All IMO

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Aye aye, it does look a bit off right now.
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Old 01-03-2011, 08:20 AM   #90
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With this latest incarnation of the alpha theme, I cannot make the mixer small enough (height) when default/docked. It doesn't resize below a certain point, which is too big for my laptop.

I suppose this was made to compensate for the otherwise limited fader range.

I think there is still room for improvement for much shorter mixer heights. The buttons below the faders can be compacted more (lose the labels) to fit into 2 lines (instead of 3) for example.
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Old 01-03-2011, 08:35 AM   #91
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Evan View Post
With this latest incarnation of the alpha theme, I cannot make the mixer small enough (height) when default/docked. It doesn't resize below a certain point, which is too big for my laptop.

I suppose this was made to compensate for the otherwise limited fader range.

I think there is still room for improvement for much shorter mixer heights. The buttons below the faders can be compacted more (lose the labels) to fit into 2 lines (instead of 3) for example.
I agree with you about losing the words (since every other daw does just fine without them), but the official team believes that since we have the capability to make themes without labels, that they can make one with labels (for newcomers to music making).

I don't think it's negotiable without their internal change of mind.
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Old 01-03-2011, 08:41 AM   #92
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Mike, I was misunderstood. I am talking about the labels disappearing only when resizing the mixer in small heights. Much like the monitor button goes next to FX when the mixer is getting smaller.
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Old 01-04-2011, 09:16 AM   #93
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Evan View Post
I still don't like the colors below the faders. The labels are not readable to me, more-so when the controls are enabled (e.g. pastel green active FX button over grey gradient)
To me each "section" should be a different shade to make it more distinct - the sends area, fader area, assignments area. Or at least the sends area should be a shade darker so that there's some portraiture to seeing the top of the fader section "end" and not just be one monolithic grey surface.
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Old 01-04-2011, 03:47 PM   #94
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howdy.

attached is a quick image to show a nitpick with the ultra small vertical meters.

notice that the larger vertical meter has a small space of TCP color (gray) to the right of it.
the small vertical meter has no such line and sort of blends into the darker color between TCP and the arrange view.



edit, this is my work computer which for some reason i have loading theme 3.0. my mistake. will test with default.

edit ii, can't test with default because the vert meter track layouts don't exist yet.
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File Type: gif vertmixerspace.gif (19.4 KB, 1152 views)
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Old 01-04-2011, 08:10 PM   #95
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This behaviour is pretty bad... you start with a nice spacious and detailed layout and then make the space containing it BIGGER resulting in everything getting squashed together because it all jumped back to the second row!



I remember WT discouraging fixed layout sizes because they broke up the natural flow of resizing but this counter-intuitive flow is a lot worse. I'm guessing this is just something that wasn't looked at yet so hopefully it'll be fixed in a little while.

[edit] Also the volume fader jumping to the right of the pan fader seems like a bad idea since it cuts off the phase button... Unless the phase button was made to follow the volume slider wherever it went, that'd be nicer.
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Old 01-05-2011, 06:34 PM   #96
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Janne83 View Post
As there was talking about more constrast.
I played a bit with the new default theme and tried to correct what bothered me:



In general I like the new default theme more than the previous.

And now off to a new year party

Happy new year to all!!!
I really like the contrast on this one. I used the v22 quite a bit over the weekend, and found the lack of contrast in certain places quite frustrating.

-I have a hard time seeing the inputs dropdown. It looks more like a dim label than a choice box.

-When the tool bar buttons are turned off, they appear unavailable - like a disabled windows button. The loop button is the same way. I cant find it when it is turned off.

Ken
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Old 01-06-2011, 04:39 PM   #97
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I personally liked the older v4 alpha theme better. At least it had a little bit of color on some of the elements, and it did look professional. This new one has to much gray IMHO.
I still think the meters should be separate from the label.
The new i0 button looks weird, and the send receive text is almost invisible.

This is my personal opinion.

Thanks, Wyatt
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Old 01-06-2011, 05:13 PM   #98
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Janne83 View Post
Another small try to make the texts in inserts and sends more clear



regards J
Is this posted/available?
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Old 01-06-2011, 05:28 PM   #99
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Just did a longer session with v4 and must say that the theme is very hard on the eyes->brain connection. I always have to THINK what's that and that. Doesn't really stop. So many blurry elements with the almost the worst contrast you can have. And much too GREY. Gives a weird "transparent" look overall


The "rounded vs squared" elements also doesn't look "right" to me.


I'm on a harware calibrated (140cd/m, SRGB, D65) NEC MultiSync LCD2490WUXi so things normally look nice here ...
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Old 01-06-2011, 05:49 PM   #100
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Default I like it in general

I realized that my previous post did not say that in general, I really like the latest skin.
Other than the contrast issue that I spoke of, I feel like reaper is really starting to look and feel professional.

It has always had power, but I always felt like I was using a geek tool rather than an artists tool.
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Old 01-06-2011, 06:10 PM   #101
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For me it has an "empty" framework look (with placeholders for elements). Don't have better words for it ...
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Old 01-06-2011, 06:52 PM   #102
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Ok, I've really been giving the latest version a go on a multi-screen setup and I have to say it's just too washed out. I've messed around with appearance settings etc and can't find anything to my liking. I agree with many in this thread that this was a swing and a miss.
And I say that most kindly and gently as i know a ton of work went into it. But as an end-user, it's far from where it should be.

Here's hoping Mr. Tie and crew will take another crack at this.

-Rich
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Old 01-07-2011, 01:38 AM   #103
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Dstruct View Post
Just did a longer session with v4 and must say that the theme is very hard on the eyes->brain connection. I always have to THINK what's that and that. Doesn't really stop. So many blurry elements with the almost the worst contrast you can have. And much too GREY. Gives a weird "transparent" look overall
i posted pretty much the same thing on another thread a few alphas ago. first time i really had anything negative to about reaper...
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Old 01-09-2011, 04:07 PM   #104
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Quote:
Originally Posted by d. gauss View Post
i posted pretty much the same thing on another thread a few alphas ago. first time i really had anything negative to about reaper...
same sort of feeling here i'm afraid. I installed on my main daw and compared to v3 it was very very grey, (i'd lowered the contrast for the monitor the mixer was place on, for v3, so this theme was super grey, and its a good point that users have contrast adjustments themselves, we don't need things too altered for us)

i found it hard to pin point many things, e.g fx browser launch, or fx bypass buttons, (getting them mixed up - do i aim for the light the text or the lighted text, or the text next to the light? ) not helped by the ones on the master being a different layout and I even had to hunt around for a while to simply hide an envelope lane as the drop box was not terribly obvious.

colouring the tracks which i thought would help reminded me of a one of those candy bracelet things, with pastel pinks and girly colours - it would have been funny how bad it looked had i not had an idea of the efforts put into it.

i have much faith in the process the theme team are going through and that v4 default should be sweet when born, but also it must be said that there are currently problems outstanding in areas that were working well in v3, like the areas mentioned, in terms of speedily knowing and finding what to hit and where with the mouse when you want to do something.

if its just me then cool, i'll use a non-default, but methinks its a thought that rings true for others. eek
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Old 01-09-2011, 04:34 PM   #105
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Not a big fan of the grey too in certain places that is, I can see why it's the track colour default because it allows tracks to be nearer to the colour you choose but having it behind the meters is one place that it looked better before. Love most of the other new bits though.
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Old 01-09-2011, 05:08 PM   #106
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That namefield color issue is a thing only Cockos really could solve. The problem was there when I first met Reaper with v2.something and hasn't really changed. All a themer can do is find the color compromise he decides to live with or abandon namebg.png altogether. Which will not go too well with many of the pixel-spoilt eyes, as it leaves you with a flat, borderless (but perfectly colored) rectangle. Which you can work around with an overlay of another button but this again results in other compromises, like non-stretching namefields in the tcp.

I'd be so happy if Cockos could do away with this old annoyance, but there's nothing that the theme team can do about it other than to find the best compromise for the situation they face.
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Old 01-11-2011, 05:59 PM   #107
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In the mixer, I have enabled clickable folder icons. When I hide the child tracks, I want a clearer indication that a track 'holds' additional tracks inside. From a distance, where you can't see the triangle icon clearly, it may appear that the folder is expanded and the tracks coming next are the children tracks (when they are not).

So I made this little illustration on how I would want it...



Can this be done with WALTER?
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Old 01-13-2011, 08:45 AM   #108
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Default Big Meters

i really like the Big Meters layout, for two reasons:
- i find the "small" meters really hard to see.
- i like having the meters all in a row with nothing between them.

in fact, this may be the main reason i upgrade to REAPER 4.
however, sometimes i wanted to have width and extended mixer things available with Big Meters. so i "Waltered" it in, but it might be nice if this was in the default theme somehow.

Code:
set mcp.size [98 392]
set mcp.trackidx [19 0 60 18 0 0 0 0]
set mcp.folder folderstate<0 [91 0 7 18 0 0 0 0] [1 0 18 18 0 0 0 0]
set mcp.label [0 19 98 18 0 0 0 0]
set mcp.mute h<380 h<320 [0] [33 255 29 20 0 1 0 1] [33 240 29 20 0 1 0 1]
set mcp.solo h<380 h<320 [0] [62 255 28 20 0 1 0 1] [62 240 28 20 0 1 0 1]
set mcp.fx h<380 h<320 [0] [33 319 38 18 0 1 0 1] [33 304 38 18 0 1 0 1]
set mcp.fxbyp h<380 h<320 [0] [71 319 19 18 0 1 0 1] [71 304 19 18 0 1 0 1]
set mcp.recmon h<380 h<320 [0] [33 337 19 16 0 1 0 1] [33 325 19 18 0 1 0 1]
set mcp.recmode h<380 h<320 [0] [52 337 38 16 0 1 0 1] [52 325 38 18 0 1 0 1]
set mcp.env h<380 h<320 [0] [33 353 57 16 0 1 0 1] [33 346 57 18 0 1 0 1]
set mcp.io ?recarm h<380 h<320 [0] [33 369 21 16 0 1 0 1] [33 367 21 18 0 1 0 1] h<380 h<320 [0] [33 369 57 16 0 1 0 1] [33 367 57 18 0 1 0 1]
set mcp.fxin ?recarm h<380 h<320 [0] [54 369 36 16 0 1 0 1] [54 367 36 18 0 1 0 1] [0] 
set mcp.volume h<380 h<320 [0] [8 255 18 114 0 1 0 1] [8 240 18 129 0 1 0 1] 
set mcp.phase h<320 [0] [8 369 18 16 0 1 0 1]
set mcp.meter h<380 h<320 [8 43 82 314 0 0 0 1] [8 43 82 177 0 0 0 1] [8 43 82 162 0 0 0 1]
set mcp.recarm h<380 h<320 [8 357 82 28 0 1 0 1] [8 220 82 28 0 1 0 1] [8 205 82 28 0 1 0 1]
set mcp.extmixer.mode [0]
set mcp.pan h<380 h<320 [0] [33 280 57 18 0 1 0 1] [33 265 57 18 0 1 0 1]
set mcp.width trackpanmode==4 h<380 h<320 [0] [33 300 16 16 0 1 0 1] [33 285 16 16 0 1 0 1]  [0]
set mcp.pan.label trackpanmode==4 [0] h<380 h<320 [0] [65 305 28 7 0 1 0 1] [65 290 28 7 0 1 0 1]
set mcp.width.label h<320 [0] trackpanmode==4 h<380 [55 305 35 7 0 1 0 1] [55 290 35 7 0 1 0 1] [0]
set mcp.volume.label trackpanmode==4 [0] h<380 h<320 [0] [33 305 29 7 0 1 0 1] [33 290 29 7 0 1 0 1]
Attached Images
File Type: png bigmeters.png (14.3 KB, 167 views)
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Old 01-14-2011, 09:53 AM   #109
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I hope this isn't seen as harsh/unfair:

I'm having a hard time figuring out what the new logo/icon is suppose to be. Is it a 3D object, like the shape of a stethoscope, or something else? I realize logos are often abstract in nature, but they don't typically invoke confusion.

btw, the new theme looks great, getting much more slick/polished looking
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Old 01-14-2011, 10:00 AM   #110
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i am not a programmer so this is a strictly aesthetic view /user assessment.

1) Can we do something to make it more visually obvious which meters belong to which fader/channel in the mixer? In other words can the design be adjusted to make it easier to differentiate between the channels on the mixer? Even just using a thicker line to outline the "channel strips" so to speak would be helpful. They end almost evenly spaced. fader/meter/fader/meter

2)Could some color other than gray be used to help define the look? I get kind of blinded by all of the grey and things start to blend into each other. Sounds strange to me when I read that back too but I am not sure how else to explain it. The Transport controls with the subtle green and red is along the lines of what I mean. If that idea could be expanded on it would be helpful to me.

3) This one may be controversial. Would it be possible to take advantage of some of the insane processing that's available on modern video cards and maybe use some 3d type effects? I know no one wants to go crazy dedicating horsepower to graphics instead of audio in a DAW but a little extra snap in the graphics could go a long way in improving the "feel" of the app. Maybe they could be switch off ifthe extra processing is needed? Kind of an abstract request but the total 2d look obviously leads some to incorrect conclusion about the quality of the app. And personally its just easier to spend a lot of time in front a of slick looking app than it is a stark, bare bones interface.

4) The pastel colors feel a little dated. Selecting a dark blue in the custom color pallette still results in very different, pastel shade of blue

My 2c

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Old 01-15-2011, 07:21 AM   #111
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well after returning back to my studio after the holiday break I've taken the plunge and installed reaper 4 alpha to join the fun.

Just been using it on a test track and here are my thoughts: I agree 100% with everyone about the lack of contrast especially the mixer, I feel the whole pastel thing is just difficult to work with due to the lack of contrast.I'm using two high res 24 (1920x1200) inch Samsung monitors and in the mixer the lack of contrast makes everything hard to read,so fatiguing over time.I cannot for example see the send levels as the two colours on the panel are so close together.Switching back to the v3 theme and everything just comes alive again.

thanks for all the hard work that's been done on this and I hope the default V4 comes together in a unified way.

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Old 01-15-2011, 09:53 AM   #112
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The folder icon is too close to the TCP edge, resulting it being highlighted when bringing the mouse cursor close, in order to resize the TCP. A few more pixels distance should do the trick.
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Old 01-15-2011, 04:57 PM   #113
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