Phew! I just tried out the Style Dials.
 
They are HUGE! Why?
 
On my laptop there's space for about 1 and 1/2 of these.
 
Yes, I know they can be collapsed and yes, I know you can scroll, but there's too much of that necessary already.
 
I think it may be as well to bring back some perspective.
The ProChannel is supposed to emulate a channel strip on a mixing desk.
For those who have never seen such a thing, they are designed to take up as little space as possible.

"Other than that Mrs. Lincoln, how did you like the play?"

Yes I agree they should be as compact as possible. I think that should be a style guide for all PC modules - compact without sacrificing convenience. Another candidate for change is the FX Chain module which should really be fluid in height depending on how many plugins you have loaded. Sometimes I need 2 or 3 of these with only one plugin loaded in each because of the effect chain I have going on with other modules in between them, and it's a huge waste of space.

Maybe this should be moved to the Features & Ideas forum. I also agree that they could be made smaller.

 
I think style dials are more suited to Music Creator than Sonar.  Simple for those who don't have the time or the inclination.  They really don't fit in Sonar beautiful interface.  And they're just a preset of existing plugins which a Sonar user would do well to learn.  I think they were given to Sonar users just because they could.
 
 

sharke
Yes I agree they should be as compact as possible. I think that should be a style guide for all PC modules - compact without sacrificing convenience. Another candidate for change is the FX Chain module which should really be fluid in height depending on how many plugins you have loaded. Sometimes I need 2 or 3 of these with only one plugin loaded in each because of the effect chain I have going on with other modules in between them, and it's a huge waste of space.

Why a dial?  Why not sliders that move left to right like the controls in the track view, i.e. volume and pan?  Far left would be zero effect and far right total effect.  This would take up a lot less space.

The style dials are not always just more or less of something. some of them claim that each position on the dial is a different "sweet spot" in the underlying effects the dial combines. 
 
Beyond that I agree that a smaller dial or perhaps the option to change the interface to a slider would help with the space issue.
 
I agree that this would be a good suggestion in the Features and Ideas forum.  

sharke
Yes I agree they should be as compact as possible. I think that should be a style guide for all PC modules - compact without sacrificing convenience. 

I agree. Style Dials are a great concept with much utility, but I do not like the execution - they take up too much space, compromise the utility of the ProChannel, and are out of character with SONAR's elegant interface. I really like MarioD's slider idea. 

MarioD

sharke
Yes I agree they should be as compact as possible. I think that should be a style guide for all PC modules - compact without sacrificing convenience. Another candidate for change is the FX Chain module which should really be fluid in height depending on how many plugins you have loaded. Sometimes I need 2 or 3 of these with only one plugin loaded in each because of the effect chain I have going on with other modules in between them, and it's a huge waste of space.

Why a dial?  Why not sliders that move left to right like the controls in the track view, i.e. volume and pan?  Far left would be zero effect and far right total effect.  This would take up a lot less space.

This would make more sense and could be quite compact.  I'm wondering if they shouldn't run these things by CA before release. Same for the start page which needed touching up, I believe Craig was instrumental in getting this tidied up.
 
On the negative side I always found that sliders collect more dust than dials and often crackle.