Guitarpima
I'm glad you all like it but for me, it's hard to look at. I don't care about esthetics. I want functional more than esthetics. So, not to be rude, your wasting your time saying how much you love the GUI in this thread. I'm glad you like it. More power to you. It's not for me and it gives me a headache.
 
It may not be "pretty" but it was very functional and easy to work for long periods of time.
 

 
 

I'm with you here. It's very similar to how I had the CV looking in 8.5 before I moved to X3. The mess that became the CV was the main reason I didn't make the switch to earlier X series, but I thought the much vaunted ability to choose your own colours again would mostly solve this. However,  select black and what do you get ? Slightly darker grey ! Erm, is that the same thing now ? Not really is it. I've said it before and I'll say it again - the track view in X series is a great improvement and 8.5 TV does look very clunky now by comparison, but the console view contains many backward steps - not just colours, but the undecipherable abbreviations and general waste of space compared to pre-X.

I have been looking at Reaper now for a couple of days and I see you can change (or make) your own GUI to work with Reaper. They heave a lot of themes in there.
I also think that this discussion is not about brightness, color, but also how users would like to see their GUI while working on it. To be honest , I really like the GUI on Sonar and also the way everything (well, almost everything) works.
If you want the extreme changes that some people are suggesting then I would go to Reaper and download the program for free and see what you would be getting into when changing your GUI. You also have a sort of Pro Tools Gui in there. First of all, it will keep you busy and second and most important might cure you of the thought as changing the GUI.
After all I think we use the software to make music and not to be developers.
Again,only my opinion.

John
What would be nice for me would be a scalable CV. One that I could adjust in overall size and still see all its contents.

 

paulo
but the undecipherable abbreviations and general waste of space compared to pre-X.

 
Big +1 to both.

 




With respect to your opinion, which of course you are entitled to express ( why do I always sound so condescending when I try to be polite? Not intended ;) ) I think that all those who are unhappy with it just want the facilities that they already once had, which doesn't really seem so much to ask.




Hey Paulo
Its nice to know that you dont like my opinion.
What I am saying is that if Sonar would take Panu as a sidechain to Sonar (a paid separate site) as maybe Sonar Plus, Panu could work on the GUI which would not interfere with Sonar but would satisfy a lot of users as far as their wishes in what they want to see.
I, myself believe that Sonar is on the right track in making a DAW that can stand up to any other daw without all the GUI (face) changes and giving themselves a broad base to work without the GUI tweeks.
Everyone has their own wishes when it comes to daws and that is probably the main reason that there are so many of them out there now.

Like I was trying to say.
Sonar is very busy with only a hand full of developers to make Sonar one of the best daws on the market and that also has a look and feel to it for the General Public. There will always be users that would like to see the Gui built up for their particular workflow and that is great. Cakewalk is working hard getting skylight to the point where they can make most people happy. It is impossible to make everyone happy.
This would be the right time for Panu to step in to help the not so satisfied customers with their wishes and hopefully get some donations from those same people. That would pay for the website and also make sure that cakewalk can stay on track making the best DAW in their own eyes.

Can I vent for one second?  I am frustrated with X3 colors as well.  But I'm even more frustrated when I come to this forum and ask a question and instead of getting an answer I get a bunch of "why would you want to do that??"  Or, even worse, "what does it matter just write music."  It happens virtually every time.  Of course there are a lot of helpful people and answers here and 80% of the time I get my problem solved so I will just shut up now.

cowboydan
 
 



Hey Paulo
Its nice to know that you dont like my opinion.
What I am saying is that if Sonar would take Panu as a sidechain to Sonar (a paid separate site) as maybe Sonar Plus, Panu could work on the GUI which would not interfere with Sonar but would satisfy a lot of users as far as their wishes in what they want to see.
I, myself believe that Sonar is on the right track in making a DAW that can stand up to any other daw without all the GUI (face) changes and giving themselves a broad base to work without the GUI tweeks.
Everyone has their own wishes when it comes to daws and that is probably the main reason that there are so many of them out there now.

 
 I agree that it is probably not possible or practical to accomodate everyone's personal preferences and I don't particularly advocate having third parties involved, I just think that choosing black in the current selection configuration should result in ...well, black, not a very slightly darker grey. If I choose blue I get blue, yellow I get yellow, green I get green, black..... err sorry, how about this slightly darker version of what you're trying to get rid of instead ?  Why offer it as a choice and then not do it when that choice is selected ? This is basic stuff.
 
There should really be no need to hire a third party to make text legible - it used to be fine, so it baffles me how people just accept it now that it isn't because ....hey, this is the new cutting edge version - you should get with the times man ! I'm not just here to bash. Like most users I just want Sonar to be the best it can possibly be - needing to stop and translate the names of your tracks before you know if you're moving the correct fader isn't progress in my opinion.

CakeAlexS

Paulo


With respect to your opinion, which of course you are entitled to express ( why do I always sound so condescending when I try to be polite? Not intended ;) ) I think that all those who are unhappy with it just want the facilities that they already once had, which doesn't really seem so much to ask.

What worked in the past may not work in the present. Sonar now has colour customisation whether you like it or not. Right now allowing third party developers to hook into the UI would probably require various hook in points exposed. Cake would need to document and maintain them, plus cake would have to go in and put in code to disable their existing colour optimisation when third party code requests it. Also if third party code broke for whatever reason cake would get its butt kicked.

Something like that would take a lot of support and development time, plus Cake would thus be moving towards more of an open source mentality. Time then would probably be best spent improving their existing UI themselves or just go completely open source with everything and try and get everybody else to improve the product (from experience I can tell you it doesn't quite work that way in the end). In the case of the latter that would requite publishing source code and updating it on a regular basis (ain't gonna happen).

Do any paid for DAW's allow this to happen?

You are right if everything has to be built up again, but Panu has already done the small tweaks that some users want and also some of the big projects in Sonar Duckbar. This would seem to be a viable solution for those who cannot get enough legibility with their pots, names, etc. Nothing big would change. Panu does excellent work on this subject and could help a lot of people and give Cakewalk some well deserved rest. And maybe get a donation or two.

Unfortunately with source code, whilst something may not look that big a job visibily, it can quite a massive undertaking to expose and support points that plug into a UI (I sort of covered that in the last post).. Take VSTs for example, there isn't a week that goes by where there isn't some issue going on. Supporting VSTs I suspect is extremely time consuming, esp when a lot of the time you are helping third party developers fix their issues who don't even pay you for it in return.

From what I see (correct me if I'm wrong) Panu needs Cake to undertake significant work in order for this.... Kickstarter (if you like) to happen. And then they would be expected to support it. If you think this is quick and easy to do think again. I don't see where the revenue comes in for Cake here, and I see it as too much trouble for Cake.

I prefer Paulo's last point as it is realistic as Sonar is not going open source any time soon (except with mackie controllers which (like vst's) can be plugged in).

Anyway I do understand what some people would like to happen, I just don't see it as realistic, even with donations which I suspect would be trivial in comparison to the work. Improving their own UI would be far cheaper and easier.

CakeAlexS
Unfortunately with source code, whilst something may not look that big a job visibily, it can quite a massive undertaking to expose and support points that plug into a UI (I sort of covered that in the last post).. Take VSTs for example, there isn't a week that goes by where there isn't some issue going on. Supporting VSTs I suspect is extremely time consuming, esp when a lot of the time you are helping third party developers fix their issues who don't even pay you for it in return.

From what I see (correct me if I'm wrong) Panu needs Cake to undertake significant work in order for this.... Kickstarter (if you like) to happen. And then they would be expected to support it. If you think this is quick and easy to do think again. I don't see where the revenue comes in for Cake here, and I see it as too much trouble for Cake.

I prefer Paulo's last point as it is realistic as Sonar is not going open source any time soon (except with mackie controllers which (like vst's) can be plugged in).

Anyway I do understand what some people would like to happen, I just don't see it as realistic, even with donations which I suspect would be trivial in comparison to the work. Improving their own UI would be far cheaper and easier.

I see that we will just have to agree to disagree.
Panu has been doing this since the pre-X time and has had a lot of fun with it. 
Not in your time I guess.

@dan I'm not disagreeing, contrary to common perceived opinion in these forums I'm pretty open minded, I just don't see how it could be done with Cakes cooperation in the real world. I do remember this but from I saw they were hacks, and pretty good hacks.

For me I don't really care too much about colour, it's always the sound and workflow, but I do understand and appreciate it matters to others.

> Why didn't you put 100% full color customization into X3? 
 
I can answer that, it wasn't on the roadmap. Are you complaining that colour customization was introduced in X3 or would you have preferred that it never happened?
 
Of course later versions of Sonar bring enhancements and improvements (and occasionally things need to be cut out for coding or design reasons), but to say that X should have priority over Y is just your opinion, and by the look of it there are a lot of different opinions out there. My opinion is fix the bugs first. Cake should listen but in no way are they accountable to us.
 
Cheers...

 
> but your satisfaction isn't really helping anyone get the message across that there is a desire to be able to customize the interface more - and in ways that used to be available.
 
I think you misread, I wrote earlier that:
 
For me I don't really care too much about colour, it's always the sound and workflow, but I do understand and appreciate it matters to others.
 
and
 
Of course later versions of Sonar bring enhancements and improvements (and occasionally things need to be cut out for coding or design reasons), but to say that X should have priority over Y is just your opinion, and by the look of it there are a lot of different opinions out there. My opinion is fix the bugs first. Cake should listen but in no way are they accountable to us.
 
Nobody is ever satisfied (inc me), I just try to be realistic... I say again I totally understand this is important to some and of course enhancements to improve anything are nice. Don't let me stand in the way of your views though, good luck!

Guitarpima
I'll never understand those who say, "why worry about the colors, just make music. Your wasting too much time with customization." 

I searched the whole thread, I didn't see one person who said that. Most opinions seemed pretty respectful. And where opinions may have been harsh I certainly clarified this later. There may be difference of opinions and people are entitled to them (as are you).
 
If you want people to talk about the specifics then supply the specifics, otherwise expect generalisations and football team mentality. BTW there have been a lot of good posts here that have done just that (been specific - Jlien and Paulo).

I like the new colours in X3 very much, and I also very much appreciate and use Panu's mods.
 
There is one difficulty I have with colours: identifying the track(s) armed for recording at a glance. The little white area is just too, well, little for me to see without taking the time to look quite carefully. I would wish for the whole track or tracks to change to a pre-chosen (by the user) colour/text combination as soon as record arm is selected, the same combination to be used on any track that is armed for recording. The user would naturally avoid having any other (non-selected) tracks use a similar combination.
 
For example, let's say my colour selections are all fairly pastel blues for percussion, yellows for keyboards, greens for guitars, etc. Well, then I might choose a bright red background with black text for any track currently selected. So, if I select a green guitar track, it would instantly turn red and I'd see the text in black. 
 
Maybe being able to keep the same colour as originally chosen by us for each track would be better, if we could dial in a different intensity of colour to be used when the track is selected. For example, if the shade of green for my acoustic guitar is of medium intensity (say 5 on a scale of 1 to 10), I could choose to have it change to an intensity of 1 (almost white) or 10 (extremely dark).
 
Anyway, that was my two cents' worth. I'm very, very happy with Sonar X3d but my oldish eyes do struggle with that one area.
 
LJ