Seems there are a lot of threads with desires of wanting the possibilities of Sonar's custom color schemes to be updated.
People want to change the colors to suit their moods I guess ? Or maybe they want to create visual aids to do their work more efficiently ?
 
I've noticed this trend in many new updates to softwares that I use:  Autocad, Adobe, to mention a few . . . that have this "corporate grey" look.
The fonts are grey, the backgrounds are grey. It's a minimalistic approach, like watching a new movie in black and white.
 
Sonar X2 literature / marketing doesn't mention that colors are going to change, so is it here to stay ?
Maybe the corporates have decided for us that their look is more fitting for a serious software, less like a toy.
 
Don't get me wrong, I like the new "lack of color scheme" for it's simplicity  . . . but sometimes, late on a Friday night, I want to add a little color
to my life in Sonar . . . and it's just not there.
 
maybe X3
 

I find that changing color schemes really affects my feeling toward a project. Back when I used to do some coding I found I could think better with white text on a green background. Don't know why. I really don't know why they don't go ahead and add full color customization to Sonar, it's pretty much standard these days and even your little freeware apps have some degree of customizability. 

noynekker


Sonar X2 literature / marketing doesn't mention that colors are going to change, so is it here to stay ?
Maybe the corporates have decided for us that their look is more fitting for a serious software, less like a toy.
 
maybe X3
 

It's not that X1/X2 are incapable of color customization, it's just that compared to 8.5 there are less elements that can be customized. Now, if you search out panup he has addons (sonarmods.co  IIRC) that may float your boat..... but until X2 comes out, it's hard to say if his X1 mods will port over painlessly.

WAY less color elements can be customized in X1 than 8.5, why ain't Panu on the payroll yet ?

noynekker


WAY less color elements can be customized in X1 than 8.5, why ain't Panu on the payroll yet ?

Because he "patches" and prolly CW does not want their programming resources to be drained by what they perceive as a non-issue.

So corporate we remain.

bapu

noynekker


WAY less color elements can be customized in X1 than 8.5, why ain't Panu on the payroll yet ?

Because he "patches" and prolly CW does not want their programming resources to be drained by what they perceive as a non-issue.

Hmm... Ben was 'patching' (more or less) and then they *hired* him (so I've heard anyway). Not sure if the theory stands up... still, it's a bit of a mystery. 

I personally used some of Panup's mods for a while and then after a couple of updates I kind of didn't bother patching again as I was in the middle of something, and I found that I didn't mind the colours so much.  Yes it's a bit 'boring' and grey but it's very functional and at the risk of fulfilling their logic I find I am spending more time making music and less time tweaking. So I'm going to wait and see how X2 looks and if it isn't blatantly offensive to me I figure I'll stay the course and focus on the sounds. 

I used the same custom color set up for my SONAR installs that I had used on my Pro Audio installs.

Every few years I might have to adjust something to accommodate a change in the application, but not much.

The previous custom color options did not compell anyone to do constant tweaking... that was optional.

I very much appreciated being able to tweak the colors so that I may deal with my vision needs.

If we had Ben's and Panup's tools back then I would have spent a few minutes making the admitted ugly buttons less ugly.  Cakewalk could have done that too. But they let the ugly buttons with the crude 3d shadows fester for 10 years and then replaced them with really big, grossly oversized, ok looking buttons that que'd right off the right margin of the display screen.

Witnessing the roll-out, with the non-functional color custom options, was like watching the Titanic hit the iceberg.

 
best regards,
mike

I believe this trend toward grey started with Sonar and some other DAWs trying to emulate the Nuendo look, which started the whole corporate grey interface to begin with.

Nuendo is designed to look that way so that it doesn't blind you when you are editing sound to picture in a mix theater with a relatively less bright projection display.



best regards,
mike