Just for fun ... Duckbar Theme Editor, day 2

I am amazed at the idea that you can make so much progress in a timely manner. Nicely done!

skinnybones lampshade
Dear Panu,
 
If you can make the fader cap of each track follow the selected colour for said track (say, if I choose green for guitars and yellow for vocals, the fader caps will magically be green and yellow respectively), I will walk around my city for six hours wearing a sandwich board proclaiming, "PANU is KING, and all's well!"
 
Preparing sandwich board as I write,
LJ

 
That would be cool but there is only one fader for track strips, one fader for bus strips and one fader for mains (exception is narrow strips have their own faders, one for each as stated). So this would not be possible without an entire strip overlayment of some kind. In which case everything would reflect that color. And that may not be desirable.

Great ideas, Panu!

Image: Screenshot of early alpha version
 
I imported color editing from Duckbar's existing Colors and EXE Colors modules; tweaking multiple colors at once is super easy and fast this way: it's possible to sort colors by the RGB code, group or name. Additionally all color and graphics resources can be freely grouped.
 
Examples of color editing:
- Make selected colors darker: Effect | Darken. (Or Ctrl-D)
 - Invert colors. Effect | Invert. (Or Ctrl-I)
- Change hue. Effect | Hue.
- Add saturation. Effect | Saturation.
 
I prefer sorting colors by the 'Colors' columns.
 

While I tried Duckbar and thought it was cool, I really like what you are doing with your theme editor. I presume it will save themes as Sonar theme files?
 
Regards,
Dan

I assume that your themes will be in Duckbar?  All your work is always top notch.
 
Thanks, Clint

panup

FCCfirstclass
I assume that your themes will be in Duckbar?  All your work is always top notch.
 
Thanks, Clint

Yes, of course!
I'll convert all old Duckbar themes to the official theme format. Duckbar Theme Editor will read x1mod and x4mod files (Duckbar's themes) and they can be saved as SONAR Themes.

 
Fantastic.  Much Thanks.

Nice work Panu!

Great work....can't wait!

Jesse,
unfortunately theme editor can not change graphics in the way you described; you should send a feature request directly to Cakewalk instead!
 
...
 
 
Duckbar Newsletter - Day 5
 

Screen capture 1: Import entire folders containing resource files from disk


Screen capture 2: Export selected theme resources to disk (as PNG, BMP or COL files)

Good news!

Import / Export

Batch import/export works now. You can
- Export selected (or all) original or themed resources to disk
- Import resources from png, bmp and col files; either by selecting file(s) or entire directory tree.

Clipboard
- Windows Clipboard copy / paste support added.

File  | save
- Save as .sth theme works.
Todo: save preview image, too.

File | Open
- Theme Editor can read current theme format perfectly.

Delete from theme
- Works.

Copy original -> theme
- Possible from context menu and from the main menu

Edit
- Edit single resource image in external editor works.
- To do: Edit color - redirect to Select color.

Resource Preview
- Preview pane size follows main window size. Preview images are cropped to fit in window.
- Original and themed images have their own context menus.
To do: improve.

patm300e
Question, does track colors work after using this?  I am under the impression that Cakewalks own theme editor breaks the ability to change track colors...Which is why I am still using the default installation theme.
 

I don't know.
 
Can you - or anybody - explain how does Cakewalk's theme editor break the ability? Do theme's track colors override colorset colors set in preferences?
 
 

OK, I got it.
I'll see what I can do... Maybe user theme needs to be marked internally as "Mercury factory theme". That's rude thing to do but may actually work. :)

Duckbar Theme Editor - Day 6 of development
 

 
Batch editing
 
Editing multiple images is easy:
- Select images in grid view
- Press Enter.
 
Now each selected item is opened in the external image editor one by one. Save edited image and confirm changes in Theme Editor. Immediately after that the next image is opened for editing until all images are processed or you have cancelled operation in the confirmation window.
 
If image is not yet themed, then the original one is copied automatically to theme before editing.
 
Practically ALL operations support batch processing.  :)
 
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File format support
 
Today I improved reading/writing theme files; now old Duckbar themes (and mods) as well as Cakewalk user themes and factory themes can be opened and saved.
 
Supported filetypes:
- sth (Cakewalk user theme)
- fth (Cakewalk factory theme)
- x4mod (Duckbar theme for SONAR2015 and newer)
- x1mod (Duckbar mod for SONAR X1, X2, X3 and newer)
 
Duckbar themes are useful especially if you still use SONAR X1-X3 but they're as well suitable for the current SONAR, too. 
 
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Screen capture from preview area: If item is not themed, then only the original resource is shown. Images can be moved freely in the window (drag and drop things added later as well as different background colors to check transparency).
 
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Yesterday I tested animating rotary knobs. It almost worked but there were some issues and I suspended that branch. Later I will make all buttons and knobs alive in the preview area to demonstrate their real looks in SONAR.  Some items may also be previewed by featuring surrounding graphics/colors, for example Console View text on the real background image etc. I designed WYSIWYG style editor in 2012 but I did not finish it. It was not wasted time, though, because I can recycle my old ideas now. :)
 
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After I have finished all basic features it is time to add hue, sat, lightness etc. adjustments for selected images. This already works for colors, but it saves a lot of time if you don't need to open 800 images (for example) for hue adjustment.  It's actually pretty straightforward thing to do and maybe I can do it even later tonight already. :)
 
FAQ
- Why do you do this?
- Because it's interesting.
 
- Why don't you just send feature requests for Cakewalk?
- I save their time. And because I wanted to do this myself because, as I already said, it's interesting.
 
- But it takes a lot of time?
- Yeah, but it's for learning.
 
- Are you insane?
- Positive.
 
- Why not get hired by Cakewalk? (This has been asked million times already.)
- I'm guitarist, musician, producer, recording and mixing engineer and studio owner, not programmer. This is merely a hobby for me. My code is too messy because I can not fully utilize object oriented programming and have no experience of coding in a team.  My quality assurance friend laughted at my version control. 
 
- Is Duckbar free?
- For you, yes. For me: it has costed at least $20,000 because I have not done the productive work while coding... This weeks cost: $1,500. I really should continue mixing but coding this thing is just too addictive at the moment!
 
- When is the first version available?
- Dunno. A couple (1-4) of weeks maybe.
 
Final note: Duckbar Theme Editor will be cool. I promise it. :)

Thanks for your support, guys.
I appreciate it, really! :)