Kamikaze
Under preferences we have 2 ways to adjust colouring. A choice of two themes (in Themes), which can be edited further, and the colors options (In Colours). Do the interact, or do they work independently. I guessing they don't interact as changes made to 'Color' run across the chamge in 'themes'
 
How do you know when to make an edit in one or the other? Is there a clear line? 

The color options in Sonar are a convoluted mess, full of contradictions and inconsistencies, made even more complicated by the theme editor.  There's the old color options, most of which don't even work at all.  Then there is the left-screen color choices for tracks, clips and the console colors, which works in one theme but not another (weird!), and now there's the theme editor, which is a complex program in and of itself.
 
This is a music program, how much time does one really want to spend tweaking colors?  Should a DAW's color choices be this complicated?   No matter which theme or color scheme you choose, it won't improve music composition and it won't improve production quality.  I think priorities are important here.  I do wish CW would simplify and unify color options.  Most programs do have straightforward options for changing colors.  I personally think a theme editor is a distraction from making music and have no use for it, I'm already busy enough.
 
Jerry

Well said Jerry. Couldn't agree more about the convoluted mess that is Sonar colors. I finally broke down and bought splat based on the "upcoming color fixes". I guess I should have waited. But, I've been waiting since 8.5. I bought X1 and X2 and have never really used them. I just stay on 8.5 to get work done. I'm starting to get the feeling that Splat will go in the trash heap along with x1 and 2. They should brand the theme editor as "Smart Colors" as it's about as intelligent as the Smart Tool.

When I stared using the theme editor (like the day it came out) I had to convert the filename*sth and to filename*. Fth and move them from C:\Cakewalk Content\SONAR Themes and put them into the C:\Program Files\Cakewalk\SONAR Platinum
After the Theme video came out I started using it the way the video tells us.
With one problem… You need to use two filename*sth copies file alternating each save, loading the new theme each time you send it to Splat OR you have to close Spat every time you update the theme. Having two copies Rolling is also good if you mess something up in one copy or the other you can just save as and over right the bad copy. One other thing… When you name the theme in the editor that is the name you will find when you load the theme into Splat. changing the file name outside the editor will not change the name of the theme within the theme itself.
 
The ordinal Theme editor files are to be saved in this directory C:\Cakewalk Content\SONAR Themes and put them into the C:\Program (default)
After that it looks like the conversion to the Filename*.fth is automated and the file is loaded into the Splat theme menu.
 
You cannot save your edits as Tungsten or Mercury.
 
I don’t really like that most of the time with the color settings that you have no clue what they are, so I went through each area and set them all to random colors than in Splat I could week though them one by one looking at them back and forth from spat and the editor. That worked well.
Some of the colors are not colors but are graphics.

What happens if you edit the font colors again?

In other words, if you override your theme with an adjustment in preferences > colors can you revert to the previous color scheme or does the adjustment in preferences > colors bake the changes into your theme in a way that can not be rolled back?
 
Thank you.

un
What happens if you edit the font colors again?

I'm done spending my time jumping between screens trying to make sence of a pattern of behavior. When I opened yesterday morning, My trak fonts were green (Theme option) and bus fonts were orange (colours option). Even though I reset everything to default and noticed my Transport slider bar was green. I thought 'was it always green?'. later it reverted to blue. Even Sonar is asking 'what colors should I be following now?'
 
Coloured strips are only available to mercury and these are the colours I care about. I'm going to be pissed when cakewalk finally drop these Which I fully expect, without explanation.

jsg
...
 
This is a music program, how much time does one really want to spend tweaking colors?  Should a DAW's color choices be this complicated?   No matter which theme or color scheme you choose, it won't improve music composition and it won't improve production quality.  I think priorities are important here.  I do wish CW would simplify and unify color options.  Most programs do have straightforward options for changing colors.  I personally think a theme editor is a distraction from making music and have no use for it, I'm already busy enough.

Co-sign!
 
I don't want to have to get a theme editor to have a workspace that is more silver than black. I don't want to spend hours digging through menus & images, testing iterations. This is what I do at my day job!
 
All I want, a good selection of a good variety of color schemes (like almost every other freaking DAW) and some sensible, easy to grok color customization.
 
Seriously, Cake, I'm generally good w/ your UX & UI (minor quibbles but so what?), but why is there no real variety in the color schemes? And the crazy thing is Sonar used to have it! Color schemes were great around 8.5 - X1. Some enterprising users made great Live-like, PT-like, etc. color-schemes. And then... what happened I can only speculate. But major parts of the UX are now locked down with near-black, black-brown colors.
 
I'm waiting to see how the Theme editor shakes out before I make my final judgement call whether it's worth the time & money. ::fingers crossed::

jsg

Kamikaze
Under preferences we have 2 ways to adjust colouring. A choice of two themes (in Themes), which can be edited further, and the colors options (In Colours). Do the interact, or do they work independently. I guessing they don't interact as changes made to 'Color' run across the chamge in 'themes'
 
How do you know when to make an edit in one or the other? Is there a clear line? 

The color options in Sonar are a convoluted mess, full of contradictions and inconsistencies, made even more complicated by the theme editor.  There's the old color options, most of which don't even work at all.  Then there is the left-screen color choices for tracks, clips and the console colors, which works in one theme but not another (weird!), and now there's the theme editor, which is a complex program in and of itself.
 
This is a music program, how much time does one really want to spend tweaking colors?  Should a DAW's color choices be this complicated?   No matter which theme or color scheme you choose, it won't improve music composition and it won't improve production quality.  I think priorities are important here.  I do wish CW would simplify and unify color options.  Most programs do have straightforward options for changing colors.  I personally think a theme editor is a distraction from making music and have no use for it, I'm already busy enough.
 
Jerry

I have to agree with some of that, Jerry. Though the bakers are trying to give us "something" I find it so confusing that I'm not even interested. I have to watch a video on how to edit the colors in SONAR? Doesn't that say something right there? I'm no reaper fan, but there's a DAW that makes it pretty easy.
 
All of the above said, I've been upset with cakewalk since hey removed our old  color options while making us wait until splat to get them back, only to have more of a cluster than we had before with colors. Not to mention one of the bakers making a comment about us making music instead of tweaking our DAW. I disagree with that, and no one should make that decision for us.
 
Unlike some of the hobby guys around here, I'm stuck looking at my DAW 14+ hours. I would like to enjoy what I see. For others with vision problems, they left sonar because of how poorly the colors were handled. For some of us, it's super important to have color control. Not to sound strange, but I personally would have given up any option we have today for proper color editing going back to X1. It's that important to me. 
 
But, it is what it is. I've tried to use theme editor 5 times without reading anything. My trial and error tells me it way too complicated than it needs to be. I've beta tested for several companies like fractal audio, bfd drums and many others without touching a manual at first, other than when I really needed do get deep with something. Though our theme editor is advanced and someone put a load of time into it, it's way more complex than if needs to be in my opinion. Until I have the time to learn it, I'm using some of the themes created by others.
 
-Danny

My $.03...    the Theme Editor is complex, mostly because there are just so many things that can be changed and by name not all are easy to find.   That said, I'm very glad it was released because I like what a few others have been able to do in the short time the Theme Editor has been available.   It seems to me that some folks simply don't find it as overwhelming.   I hope to get there someday too but have a nice palette of alternatives to work with in the interim due to the generosity of others.