Yeah, the graytones have been a problem here as well. I am constantly having to click power buttons in the rack to see if they get lighter or darker to make sure they are indeed on or off. Not a great situation.
 
I've never seen the blue thing which is weird because... well I should have at this point. Is that new in Ipswich?
 
I would MUCH rather have the blue be the "On" indicator and gray as "Off"... more like how it used to be in the FX Bin which was much easier to see what was active.
 
I like the rack... but the grayscale stuff needs to be fixed. I'd also like an option to disable the vertical expansion (in favor of scrolling like the old Bin had) for when I don't want the rack taking up as much vertical space (eg: when I'm not actually futzing around with FX).

I would like what Beep is saying here, too.

Blue is not just open but also in focus. If you have two or more open plugins the one with focus with turn blue in the rack.

Beepster
Yeah, the graytones have been a problem here as well.

 
Well, the grays are usually a problem, what with abductions and all that...oh, graytones. Never mind.
 

I am constantly having to click power buttons in the rack to see if they get lighter or darker to make sure they are indeed on or off. Not a great situation.

 
Agreed; I too click to check status, which is not welcome in the heat of making music when you shouldn't have to think about parsing stuff. Not every SONAR user is working in a video editing suite environment. However...
 

I would MUCH rather have the blue be the "On" indicator and gray as "Off"... more like how it used to be in the FX Bin which was much easier to see what was active.

 
You do need to have four states - off, FX that's off selected, on, FX that's on selected. Otherwise if you have an effect with the focus and that effect is present in multiple channels, you don't know which one you're seeing. That's why I thought "whiter white" and "brighter blue" could work. 
 

I'd also like an option to disable the vertical expansion (in favor of scrolling like the old Bin had) for when I don't want the rack taking up as much vertical space (eg: when I'm not actually futzing around with FX).

 
I think that's a good idea, as long as both options are available.
 

Sorry, resident newb here... what does "open" mean in this context?

That the FX interface is visible and able to be edited.

John
Blue is not just open but also in focus. If you have two or more open plugins the one with focus with turn blue in the rack.

I checked this out on my system and I do not get the blue at all. I wonder why some have it and some don't ? I am on the Ipswich build also.

Are the plugins on different tracks?

No the ones I tried were on the same track.
 Edit: Just tried it on different tracks also ,still no blue for me
It's not an issue for me really, it has just piqued my curiosity.
 

This they way it looks to me when I click on an open plugin.

This is true in all FX Bin views.