+1
 
 

Friend of mine was in a blues band, They painted everything blue! Mike stands, sub bins anything that was black became blue. It was a cool stage set.
PS- They used a lot of blue gels too! 
The other day I discovered the little pallet of colours at the very bottom of each track in the console  view. I coloured each type of instrument, it was fun and a big waste of my time,,, but it was fun... it does look interesting,, big waste of my time,,, but it was fun.. 

Cactus Music
The other day I discovered the little pallet of colours at the very bottom of each track in the console  view. I coloured each type of instrument, it was fun and a big waste of my time,,, but it was fun... it does look interesting,, big waste of my time,,, but it was fun.. 

I thought track icons were a waste of time too, but I've changed my mind 180 degrees. 
 
I did a workshop at AES and used Sonar to do a segment about UI called "find the drums." It was based on the console view. The first screen shot had no colors or track icons, and the drum tracks were tossed around in the 24 tracks or whatever it was. It took forever for people to locate the drum tracks.
 
The next screen shot had track icons for the drums. People identified the drums much faster.
 
The final screen shot had all the drum tracks set to the same color. People found all the drums instantly.
 
I'm working on a song right now with 22 tracks, all of which have track icons and colorizations. Bearing in mind that you want to stay in the right brain mode when creating, the right brain is good at parsing colors and images. If you have to read text, you switch over to left brain mode which isn't as desirable.
 
That to me is why discussions about color matter if you're using color to identify, because it helps the creative process.

I actually like the icons,,, it was the colours that I was talking about. and not being very serious ( twas a beer break) . They are certainly handy in console view if you use narrow strips and therefore cannot read the names. Kinda like virtual masking tape. 

Cactus Music
I actually like the icons,,, it was the colours that I was talking about. and not being very serious ( twas a beer break) . They are certainly handy in console view if you use narrow strips and therefore cannot read the names. Kinda like virtual masking tape. 

"Virtual Masking Tape" is almost a good name for a band.

The main problem with icons is screen real estate: there's been a tendency in SONAR over many versions to make the widgets and other items in left hand side of the track view larger (in both dimensions) at the expense of the right hand side (y'know, there the song actually is!).  Icons exacerbate this problem, as do the Control Surface WAI strips (as I reminded myself yesterday when bringing my CS out of storage for the first time in quite a while) and the lane buttons.  All very useful, but there's been no corresponding shrinkage in widget or font size - the reverse in fact - to balance them out.

cyberzip
 
Let's bring back the option of a light Sonar interface! :)

 
Or even better, the option of a dark one. When I choose black, it's because I want black, not slightly darker grey.

There are problems even with the most basic and adverted as "special" color changes.
Example: Change the color of a track folder and try to be able to see the + - sign that opens and closes the folder.
Good luck wit dat.
 

My current coloursetup

mike_mccue
+1
 
 

That's as gaudy as it gets my friend.
 
Well Done.