dated looking inner gui

OK, I'll bite.
What are you looking at?

Good god no. There's an OS-wide standard for menu form and function. A special Sonar-only menu system would be both a colossal waste of development time, and inevitably less complete and easy to use than the standardised Windows one.

There are quite a few things I would prefer to see dev time spent.  I've never thought that a GUI needs to look like Optimus Prime's taint to be useful.

Besides, you don't stay on a menu item. You select an item, then the menu goes away and crawls back into its hole.

John T
Good god no. There's an OS-wide standard for menu form and function. A special Sonar-only menu system would be both a colossal waste of development time, and inevitably less complete and easy to use than the standardised Windows one.

What John T said.

John
As long as they are readable and understandable there is nothing to fix. 

+1
But if enough people want it, I guess the 'old' menu is already there, so maybe we could have both, an option for those who want the menu's as is, and one for those who don't. But I can't help thinking that it could be better to concentrate on other things

If you have used the latest of Microsoft products, you'd notice that menus have been replaced by ribbons and quick access toolbars. So as far as "Windows standard" goes, old style drop down menus are no longer it.

Since this seems to be drifting into possible encouragement for such "change for the sake of change"/"form over function" territory I would like to reiterate my opposition to altering the standard menus visually (which was rather glib).
 
When I am looking at those neat, dry and professional dropdowns I know I am looking at the true functions of a program. Not the candy coated, "user friendly" (those, BTW would be sarcastic air quotes if you could see me right now) graphical bobbles that seem to be eroding away at our beloved programs and websites.
 
I appreciate that Cake needs to appeal to the vapid visual generation who have been rewarded with endorphin fixes of interacting with the shiny coins, jewels, upset avians, etc, via their light boxes within virtual realities filled with princesses and neer do well dragons or Axis forces waiting to have their helmets popped off their noggins. There is however enough flash, dash and endorphin rushes provided by musical production and the main GUI is pretty "bling" filled as it is I think we can do without such frivolities added to the default menus.
 
If this is even for a second considered for development please make it an optional feature that can be disabled or much preferably, for the sake of not introducing a bunch of unnecessary graphical bugs to the core program for us doddering "dinosaurs", a completely separate add on that integrates with the core program (not the other way around). Let the video game kids deal with any fallout from glitches and leave us boring, but happy, menu dwellers work in peace.
 
Please?
 
kthxbye

Which DAW's have better looking menus?

Anderton
I didn't take the OP as whining, but wanting the menus to have the same kind of classy GUI as Skylight. But yes, they really are different components and there's not much that can be done about it that's simple.

Nor did I really and I probably should have been less of a dink. I just really don't like the idea for my own personal system. I'd almost kind of like the option of having the Browser revert to more of a Windows shell when looking at files. It actually took me a while to realize that when browsing media in the Browser I was actually just looking at my Windows directories... which is dumb I know but I really did not know much about computers when I hopped on the Sonar train.

I've long thought that one of the key strengths of Sonar, way back to when it wasn't even called Sonar, is that it's truly Windows native. If you can use WordPad, or MS Paint, you can, at a core fundamental level, use Sonar. That's what it has - on the Windows platform - over the multitude of DAWs that have their roots on Mac. Not saying either OS is better or worse than the other, but if you're a Windows user, then the fundamental Windows-ness of Sonar is a really positive quality.

John T
Good god no. There's an OS-wide standard for menu form and function. A special Sonar-only menu system would be both a colossal waste of development time, and inevitably less complete and easy to use than the standardised Windows one.

js516
If you have used the latest of Microsoft products, you'd notice that menus have been replaced by ribbons and quick access toolbars. So as far as "Windows standard" goes, old style drop down menus are no longer it.

Exactly there are multiple UI's for the developer to call upon which are standard. You can have old style Win 3.1 if you want ;) Let's forget the metro UI shall we ;) Think sales ladies and gentlemen..!

Of course there are better things to do first, and like I said if a UI improvement makes things worst then there is no point.Pretty and usability should come hand in hand otherwise it's a #fail. That means don't make it pretty and make it less usable otherwise it will be a big screw up. However it is perfectly possible to make it pretty and easier to use. There is certainly a lot that can be done to improve the UI and usability.

The big issue as everybody knows is people hate change (check this thread) and people hear more about bad UI changes rather than good ones, and people hate UI's that slow down their workflow that is a given. Some touchscreen UI's are a crime...because they screw the workflow.

Old customers are perfectly happy I'm sure (like me) but Cakewalk needs more new customers.. Customers are looking for an experience nowadays It's not enough for instance for a phone to make one generic ringing sound. Yeah your Nokia was great but somebody else now sells more smart phones than anybody else... And the nearest rival also sells a shed load..

swamptooth

Splat
Pretty and usability should come hand in hand otherwise it's a #fail. 

True... now which is more useful from an insert fx on a track operation...
(Image removed)

Have to agree. But a lot of the problem in SONAR is the organization of the content of the menus. I was just working in ACT - the menu to assign a control to a controller is just a mess. A big, seemingly haphazard list, somewhat organized by type - none of which I can exclude or filter in any way - so I select the same item 8 different times by scrolling down a menu bar to an approximate location down the list, search, select, repeat.
I don't care what the menus look like personally - but the content and organization are critical. Function over form, IMO.