X2 is a great upgrade with a lot of good improvements. But there's one thing I miss - the buttons!
 
So many options and features are now hidden in menus, which increases mouse clicking a lot. A prime example for me is the Browser, which used to have a lot of dedicated buttons in Sonar 8.5:
 
- Enable auto-preview
- Preview at host tempo (didn't exist in 8.5)
- Loop preview (didn't exist in 8.5)
- Change view (Icon/List/Details)
 
The above are just a few examples.
 
Does anyone else want Cakewalk to bring more dedicated buttons back to avoid RSI?

Set up key bindings..then you can dedicate what ever button you want.

That's the way it goes...
IIRC, one of the most common complaints about SONAR < 8.5 was that the UI was cluttered with buttons and other junk, and the most common praise for X-versions came regarding the cleaned up, more simple UI :o) :o/

The mental illness of de-cluttering has run rampent in the X series.

One person's clutter is another's well thought through lay-out of tools.

One click buttons, reflecting state, are much superior to menus.

Menus, menus everwhere, and not a drop of reason.

I find the command-ribbon to be way cluttered with crap I never use. Which is the definition of clutter.  8.5.3 provides the true ability to declutter with completely configurable menus and button-bars.

And other stupid stuff: 
screen sets: 
    importing from other projects is stupid: should be global presets
    change the meter displays, but no presets for meters
         But there are presets for gadgets.
              Yet there are more possible choices for meters.

Hidden menus:   
   lanes
      no indication of more than one take lane in track
      take lane menu-toggle not available until track expanded:  ANOTHER MENU  ANOTHER CLICK

Menu on staff view:  absolutely the stupidest example of declutter over powerful ease-of-use.

The X series requires users to give more attention to the interface.  Not what an interface is supposed to do.

Learning key commands is useful. But key commands most often do not provide quick information about the state of functions.

If the user has to repeatedly waste time looking away from the work to read labels on  menu headers, and then click the headers to choose items that should have been icon-buttons with symbols and color, the GUI has failed.

The X series FUI is a big step to the rear for power use.

  I guess you can't please everyone. I'm loving the way X2 is laid out.
  My drummer is still on 8.5. When I go to his house and he asks me to help him with something in Sonar, I have to put on my reading glasses and spend 15 minutes trying to figure out which one of those stupid little buttons controls the function that I'm looking for. 
   I personally find the X versions much more user friendly.

  Just to clarify cyberzip, I'm not saying that you're wrong. I'm just thinking that maybe more people agree with the X1,X2 way, and that's why Cakewalk made it so.

I have to put on my reading glasses and spend 15 minutes trying to figure out which one of those stupid little buttons controls the function that I'm looking for.

 
Same here...   The 8..5 camp is correct though in that the toolbars could be customized, leaving only those tools you need.   However, as an out of the box experience, or working on someone else's machine, it was a different story...    One of things I really want in the next "X" series is a customizable Control Bar module.   That and some colors.     :)

Hi guys!

Some good ideas in here. Did you all report them to Cakewalk?

I prefer the look of X-series but did like that 8.5 was configurable so that I could remove the buttons I did not use. But as stevec writes, the experience for a new user was terrible.

I agree with the following, FWIW:

screen sets: 
    importing from other projects is stupid: should be global presets

Menu on staff view:  absolutely the stupidest example of declutter over powerful ease-of-use

One of things I really want in the next "X" series is a customizable Control Bar module.

Best Regards
Ludvig

I use Panu's Duckbar to give back many of the buttons I miss... I too prefer a button to scrolling thru menus... Keyboard shortcuts are great too, but I don't always remember them while the button is a reminder...

Keni

To this day, I still click on the Insert Menu every sodding time I want to Insert a tempo change.

I can just imagine the staff meeting that decided that: "Hey guys, Strummy wants to INSERT a tempo change, let's take that function out of the INSERT menu and, for no reason whatsoever, put in the PROJECT Menu; but just to really wind him up, when he does eventually find it, we'll still name it INSERT Tempo Change"
 
Absolutely pointless.
 
Arrrrgggggghhhhhhhhhhhhhh