bobguitkillerleft
Thanks Craig,John,JohnT,and Doktor it's just like I'm home again,though its clear my patience needs some work I think!
Craig,I really appreciate your honesty in not liking it either,but I was hoping the most recent update would do...something[?] with it,it certainly looks cooler but it's made me kinda meh about it,and I totally agree with your comments.
Best Regards Everyone
Bob

What I found is that the desirability of the Start Screen depends on what "mode" I'm in. When I'm working on a specific task for days on end (like a video soundtrack or whatever), then it's unneeded. However, when I'm in a more creative mode or bouncing back and forth among various projects, the Start Screen becomes very helpful. 

Has anyone noticed that, in the new start menu, if you click on a project that doesn't exist anymore, you don't get an error message letting you know that the project doesn't exist anymore, instead it opens the next project instead...
At least it removes the project from the start screen...

Anderton
 
 
What I found is that the desirability of the Start Screen depends on what "mode" I'm in. When I'm working on a specific task for days on end (like a video soundtrack or whatever), then it's unneeded. However, when I'm in a more creative mode or bouncing back and forth among various projects, the Start Screen becomes very helpful. 

That's actually when I find it most irritating. The slowness of it becomes unbearable.

It's a glorified dialogue box. It really should appear pretty much instantaneously. In its current state, it's more or less tripled or quadrupled start time.
 
To be absolutely fair to cakewalk, everything else that's come through the subscription programme has been great. But this feature is very unfinished, not an improvement on what went before, and really needs some looking at. I mean, it's not like it's obscure minority feature; it's the default front door for all users.

Let's see what October brings 

 

Anderton
Let's see what October brings 

This is good news Craig.  I saw that you jumped in pretty quick with some suggestions to CW right after the new start menu was introduced.  A number of other users had some great ideas for improvements as well.  For example, the present start menu seems to have a lot of wasted space.  That said,  I find it nice and easy to use and it is definitely an improvement.
 
Regarding the time to load;
I posted some test results a while ago at http://forum.cakewalk.com/FindPost/3284072  which indicated that the menu load time was 15 to 20 sec. longer with the internet on so I now disconnect from the internet most of the time.  I am very glad that CW did not program the start menu with an old school "timed-out" delay while it looked for the internet.  One idea I like for avoiding the delay is to have a small button to search for messages and tips only when the user chooses.
 
Cheers.

Anderton
Let's see what October brings 

Oh, for sure. I hope I've not overstated my case. My current faith in Cakewalk is the highest its ever been, I think. And I don't mean to be unduly harsh over what is, really, a minor wobble.

I find the scroll bar on the right to be almost non existent on the new start screen.  Very hard to make out and see.

RD9
 
Regarding the time to load;
I posted some test results a while ago at http://forum.cakewalk.com/FindPost/3284072  which indicated that the menu load time was 15 to 20 sec. longer with the internet on so I now disconnect from the internet most of the time.  I am very glad that CW did not program the start menu with an old school "timed-out" delay while it looked for the internet.  One idea I like for avoiding the delay is to have a small button to search for messages and tips only when the user chooses.
 
Cheers.

I know that load time has come up a few times now, but interestingly enough for me it's taken about 2 seconds to load from day one with an active internet connection via wireless router but no browser loaded.   No clue what the difference is but Start Screen performance hasn't been an issue for me.   I hope CW can figure out what's effecting some/most but not all. 
 

I posted this another thread but reposting here for clarity.
 
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.