Mixed emotions on this one "I'm with Paulo" on this one - Kind of like wanting or anticipating the Red Ryder BB Gun and ended up with a squirt gun...   We will see what next month holds -meantime will continue to make music 

chuckebaby
Personally, I like the start screen.
You only see the newest projects / or the projects you have "Pinned" to the start screen.
I hate Windows Metro apps start screen and everything it stands for... but the Sonar Start screen is nothing like it.
Its a way to open projects and a good way at that.
 
Its the same as looking at your file directory where your projects are,
only they are laid out in Nice colorful Icons instead.

Chuck, I agree totally. I'm still doing CD albums (for friends/relatives/anybody that will listen them) and personal enjoyment in the car.
 
The start screen brings up my "Pinned" songs so I can work on any of them for a particular phase of recording.
 
Walt
 

davec69
I'm aware that every Sonar user has their own workflow.  I generally fire up Sonar when I get musically inspired, or when I'm ready to work on an current project.  When that occurs, I'd rather not be sidetracked by anything not related to the task at hand.  For me, music inspiration is fleeting.  If I fall down that rabbit hole of free offers, tutorials, videos and such, there goes my inspiration with it.
 
With that said, I can see the start screen as a great benefit to new users and beginners.  If Sonar users could have full control over start screen content and configuration (more than just turning it on or off).  It would probably be more useful.
 
An even better idea in my opinion would be to move the start screen features to an Android & IOS app.  This way, I could access all the content at my convenience, and get notifications.   Maybe even tie the app directly to main program somehow.  How cool would it be to Open a project in Sonar, from your Android or IOS device, or view project details?  
 
To clarify, I don't mean, actually opening the project on your device, I meant using your device, to open the project on your Sonar computer.

I don't know about it being a useful tool for a beginners. How many projects does a beginner have anyway?


We do have control over what is shown. I have a bunch of projects pinned to it. We can unpin them at any time. 
As to it being slow. I'm not sure about that. Clearly it takes a little time to display but no more time then having to go to the file menu and clicking on a recent project files display. 
 
As to being forced to look at CW advertising CW must have done a very poor job of that because I can ignore the Discover tab at will. Maybe on the system of person that mentioned this one is compelled to click on that tab.  

My General MO is to update SONAR when the full release lands only after the early release has settled .
I'm still on the older Start Screen.  I happen to like the Start Screen feature in SONAR a lot .
 
At first I thought it was my imagination . Then I ran a little experiment over here .
I found out that The Start Screen in SONAR has a memory . Oh Yes it does ...
 
Since I'm an absolute beginner with only a modest 12 years of SONAR projects under my belt ...
I wanted to make perfectly sure that what I'm about to share is absolutely correct information ...
 
Most of the time I like to keep my current SONAR projects and songs local on my machine while I am working on them . It is not uncommon for me to even keep a few around for a few moths after the song has been finished .
At some point all my SONAR projects will end up on external Hard Drives for safe keeping and storage .
Also in many cases I have preferred to stream many of my larger songs and projects VIA external Hard Drives.
 
Here's one of the nice features I love about the Start Screen in SONAR ...
 
When I am using my computer and working on songs that are local to my computer the start screen will only show those ....even if my drop down file menu has ghost songs listed ...
When ever I use  my external hard drive where I have recently accessed and streamed some of  my SONAR projects from ...
The Start screen in SONAR will show my songs from that drive  how nice is that for a convenience ?
PS , after accessing and showing my external HD tunes I purposely disconnected the external drive and reopened SONAR .
Guess what ? The Start Screen only showed my local SONAR projects ... 
 
Kenny
 
 
 
 
 
 

RSMCGUITAR
You can no longer start a blank project without having to name it and creating a folder. Or am I wrong?

I'm sure you'll be glad to hear you're wrong . You can type ctrl+N at any time, whether the Start Screen is showing or not, and start a project without having to name it or create a folder. 

paulo
I guess we're all entitled to a few weeks off a year, so I'll be generous and consider this months update to be cakewalk's annual holiday.

Or be aware of how software works rather than be "generous," and realize that "light" updates usually mean something bigger is being worked on in the background. Not everything can go start to finish in 30 days...actually, not too many features can.
 
SONAR's developer are not a serial interface, there's lots going on in parallel. When something's ready for release, it gets released while the other paths continue in the background.
 

Yes, I removed my CTRL+N autohotkey binding to handle the Start Screen. Nice to see this shortcut work the same whether running the Start Screen or not.

Start screen - Tab "Existing Projects":
It would like it if the start-screen ( - under existing projects - ) would as well show my 25 existing projects as icons, in the same way as the "recent" ones.
Instead of this it opens only the same dialog box as "File open".
Instead of a dialogbox the start screen should show the projects (as icons) in alphabetical order of the project folder, which is defined under "project file".
 
 
 

kennywtelejazz
... When I am using my computer and working on songs that are local to my computer the start screen will only show those ....even if my drop down file menu has ghost songs listed ...
When ever I use  my external hard drive where I have recently accessed and streamed some of  my SONAR projects from ...
The Start screen in SONAR will show my songs from that drive  how nice is that for a convenience ?
PS , after accessing and showing my external HD tunes I purposely disconnected the external drive and reopened SONAR .
Guess what ? The Start Screen only showed my local SONAR projects ... 

Yeah I'd noticed that too - much like you, I have some projects on an external drive and some local. The first few times it freaked me out - suddenly I had only a handful of recent projects showing, and none of the ones I'd actually worked on recently. Took me a minute to figure out that the ones missing were all on the external, disconnected drive. Now that I know, it's not a problem and I can see where it could be helpful if you used it on purpose!

I just had a chance to check out the Discover feature. I think it's quite helpful, especially because it seems like newer items populate the top. Out of the 15 options, only two relate to new products. The other 13 relate to knowing more about SONAR, obtaining the 30th Anniversary freebies, linking to videos, etc. The should be a boon to those wanting to know more about a particular update or feature.
 
When the Start Screen first appeared, I made it clear on the forum that I was not a fan. After the updates sped it up, I started using it all the time. The latest incarnation is an improvement. What I'd like to see next is the option for a list view of template projects, and the ability to remove projects from the recent projects list.