Well I might be 'barking' mad I suppose, but that's about as far as that one goes..

I don't mind the new start screen thingie, just don't find it necessary.

 
And the Oscar for "Most sarcastic post in an online forum" goes to.....
 
 
 

John T
Oh no! Cakewalk would never fix anything if you didn't heroically fight for us all. Please don't stop.

 
It wasn't you who threatened to punch his lights out was it JT?

 

John T
 
..... I think the start screen was rushed out so Cakewalk wouldn't have to reach the end of a month without delivering something.
 
I can understand the reasoning, if that was the case, but myself, I'm not bothered about updates being on some arbitrary schedule like that.
 

+1
 
This is how I thought it was going to happen, with new stuff and updates being released when they were ready, rather than saving them all up for the end of the year.
 
There really is no need for an update of sorts each and every month. As long as we get some tidy stuff every now and again I think most of us would be happy with that modus operandi.
 
 
Edit - spelling

SteveStrummerUK
It wasn't you who threatened to punch his lights out was it JT?

I don't mind being the object of hatred in these forums Steve, I can also take humour on the chin if necessary, so be it, but it's another thing to try to stir up trouble and talk about physical violence. Perhaps best left alone if you have a single shred of decency about you.. Not at all funny even as a joke, and frankly none of your business. Many thanks.

SteveStrummerUK
 

John T
 
..... I think the start screen was rushed out so Cakewalk wouldn't have to reach the end of a month without delivering something.
 
I can understand the reasoning, if that was the case, but myself, I'm not bothered about updates being on some arbitrary schedule like that.
 

+1
 
This is how I thought it was going to happen, with new stuff and updates being released when they were ready, rather than saving them all up for the end of the year.
 
There really is no need for an update of sorts each and every month. As long as we get some tidy stuff every now and again I think most of us would be happy with that modus operandi.
 
 
Edit - spelling

Totally agree Steve. I'd rather wait a moth or 2 rather than getting an underbaked cake. Paul Hollywood & Mary Berry would agree!

...

John T
I'm only guessing here, of course, but my sense of what happened is this: remember how we got the update that didn't contain anything much other than the start screen, right at the end of the month, and then we got a really big update effectively a couple of weeks early after that? I think the start screen was rushed out so Cakewalk wouldn't have to reach the end of a month without delivering something.

 
Not at all. Start screen was under development for close to 3 months and was actually planned for release earlier - we chose to release it a month later in fact. Unlike a typical SONAR feature that is just in the application there are a lot of moving parts here - SONAR updates, new templates, the start screen app itself, the web back end, web design work, IT infrastructure. Its a step towards delivering a more connected experience to users like we did with command center. Its not very surprising that being the first cut there were a few loose ends. Most issues are resolved now and we still have plans to improve it in coming months. I think most will consider it useful once it evolves more. Esp for new users getting context sensitive tips and content could be one area where it could be really useful. 

SteveStrummerUK
This is how I thought it was going to happen, with new stuff and updates being released when they were ready, rather than saving them all up for the end of the year.

 
Totally disagree. Consider that many features previously released as part of a big yearly update continued to evolve, but with a much slower pace of evolution...introduce feature, spend months fixing bugs, collect feedback, make changes for next big update...compare the original ProChannel to what it is now. Imagine if that development had been compressed into months (like it is now) instead of years (like it used to be).
 
These days "new feature bugs" get fixed pretty much within a month, and feedback is implemented much faster as well. The evolution of the program has sped up considerably. I believe the only reason people don't see this is they have short memories about the arc of progress/updates with SONAR prior to 2015. Here, this will jog your memory: X2 
 

There really is no need for an update of sorts each and every month. As long as we get some tidy stuff every now and again I think most of us would be happy with that modus operandi.
 

It doesn't matter if Cakewalk was working on a new feature every month and having it sit on the shelf until the big yearly update, or whether they're working on a few feature every month and then release it. The only difference is the program evolves much faster, and becomes more stable, under the new model.
 
The biggest problem with the monthly update is it puts things under the microscope that were hidden before. If new feature "X" has a bug, the forum explodes - "New Update Buggy!" Rolling back!!" Then pretty consistently, it's fixed in the next release or several times, with a hotfix a week or two later (like the arpeggiator data bouncing issue, or the tempo change issue with upsampling). Before, if feature "X" introduced in a yearly update had a bug, it might take a while to discover because it was mixed in with a whole bunch of new features, and it would take even longer to fix it.

Noel Borthwick [Cakewalk]
The slow behavior has been resolved for the next update. The developers redesigned the way the start screen page is populated. Both offline and online cases use identical data so now its very snappy both for offline and online use.

Great job Noel and the bakers.  Thanks