AmpGUI DP Themes (now at AMPGUIMODS.NET)

[amplidood]

On the distant, rusty horizon....


Full Image

[Radiogal]

Starting to just throw everything into the pot and let it simmer slowly....

Nostalgia 72 dev

Ooooh Nostalgia.. forgot all about that one.
So cool to see the DP 5 inspiered GUI again.
Looking forward to the nostalgia experience in DP 7.2!
Thanks Andy

[corbo-billy]

I appreciate this Oxydized Themes but there is not enough contrast in general and we can't use the color brown or dark orange for the capture, files and waveforms.
Oxydized would seem perfect with a lighter background (broken white) on Sequences, Tracks, Sounbites windows.

[amplidood]

I appreciate this Oxydized Themes but there is not enough contrast in general and we can't use the color brown or dark orange for the capture, files and waveforms.
Oxydized would seem perfect with a lighter background (broken white) on Sequences, Tracks, Sounbites windows.

Which is precisely why the DefaultStyle.xml guide exists and will be updated for 7.2

[Shooshie]

I appreciate this Oxydized Themes but there is not enough contrast in general and we can't use the color brown or dark orange for the capture, files and waveforms.
Oxydized would seem perfect with a lighter background (broken white) on Sequences, Tracks, Sounbites windows.

I have used Oxidized for… I don't remember... a year? However long it has been out for previous versions of DP. It is my favorite, and my standard mod. (er… Themes, we call them now) There is no problem with the Oxidized Theme in regard to anything in DP (soundfiles or otherwise), and the contrast is excellent, and the color is simply irresistible and easy on the eyes over long periods of time. Even when I temporarily switch to the beautiful and amazing "Sleek" that Andy has recently re-released for 7.2, I still have to return to Oxidized. It's just unbelievable.

Use it! (when it's available for 7.2) And don't be afraid to modify it yourself.

Shooshie

[amplidood]

Additional Features 1.3 has a copy/paste capable password as well now.

Still working on a new set of features for the 7.2 themes. Takes time, these things do.

[amplidood]

Two issues I would love to address with themes....


When not using the Consolidated Window, this entire tab area is redundant and quite a waste of screen real estate, especially on laptops. The only reason it needs to be open is to access the mini menu, which it seems there could be a hundred other ways to get at that. Since I hardly need to get at that menu in any window but the Mixer, I like to collapse the tab bar. However, when I do, it looks like this...


Now I have a window title bar that is glaringly different than the rest of the app. It also butts up against the info bars, which makes the eye just rebel trying to take it all in. There needs to be some small amount of space between the bar and the info bar area,

DP used to draw its own window title bars. I don't know if the OS makes this impossible now or the choice was made not to work that way for some other reason. They are really the last bit of the interface that would tie it all together.

[amplidood]

Snow 72v1 available...

[Shooshie]

This bit of strangeness was not altogether unexpected because of the Cocoa APIs which apparently cause difficulties if you stray from OSX's system windows, but MOTU's solution to the problem was both inspired yet inelegant, at least in Single Window mode. Inspired in the Consolidated Windows, and in Single Windows in that you can make the problem disappear if you want; inelegant in that if you do, you lose the mini-menus and the aesthetic top space if your theme is any other than the "Classic." In the default, the system's window title bars are roughly equal to the theme's complimentary grays, so it kind of works. Makes you wonder if that's why they chose such a colorless default theme, since it was the only way to incorporate Cocoa's unalterable title bars.

It's almost hard for me to remember the pre-DP6 windows, but when I look at a picture it all comes back to me: the original Consolidated Windows suffered from having too many title bars. They were necessary, because MOTU had placed so many essential controls, plus mini-menus, right in the bar itself. When they merged the windows into the CW, they were forced to leave the title bars intact or lose their controls. To top it off, they had to put a new space there for the window selection tabs.

Really, the task of eliminating the pre-Cocoa window title-bars and their MOTU re-tasking as button toolbars, was a major move toward reclaiming design space throughout the Consolidated Window. Even though the total amount of space has not diminished by much, the amount controlled by MOTU has significantly changed. The Consolidated Window now only has ONE window title-Bar. Previously (pre-Cocoa), it had one for EVERY PANE -- space that could not be colored or reshaped by MOTU. Compare:

DP5, Consolidated Windows Full-Screenshot (notice all the title-bars)


Now imagine the image below with title-bars on every pane:
DP7.2 (Oxidized) Consolidated Windows Full-Screenshot
(noticing that the former title-bar space is now consistently framed and colored by DP, rather than OSX)

So, as far as the Consolidated Windows approach is concerned, MOTU seems to have conquered the title-bar problem in its new GUI. It's only in the Individual Windows, that is, windows outside the Consolidated Windows, that their approach leaves an inelegant problem: what to do with the redundant tab, since there is no need for a tab with almost exactly the same information as the title-bar (plus a mini-menu). They could not get rid of the title-bar, so they chose to allow the user to collapse the tab-bar and mini-menu. In doing so, they left no space for that aesthetic gap, assuming that the user would want to reclaim all possible window space, and that wasn't a problem with their new GUI, because it was the same color as the OSX Title-Bar.

So, to sum up, here is where we started, back in DP5:


Now, here are the original colors of the "new" GUI since DP6:


And here's an individual window, with tab-bar collapsed (user reclaims the most vertical space possible):


Same window with tab-bar expanded (includes all spaces from the CW, PLUS the Cocoa title-bar:


So, we've seen the dilemma in which MOTU found themselves:

1) They needed the Tab-Bar to replace the Title-Bar in Consolidated Windows
2) They needed to eliminate the Tab-Bar in the Single Window mode (where the Title-Bar could not be eliminated)
3) They needed to eliminate as much vertical space as possible when using single windows
4) With their original "colors" (grays), they could use the Title-Bar as blank-space, but could not put the Mini-Menu in it, given the Cocoa GUI.
5) With the Title-Bar going away in the CW, they had to reposition all the buttons that had always resided in it. Some would go to the Control Panel and some to the Info Bar of the window.

As a result of all the above, MOTU made the CW very aesthetically pleasing for richly colored themes, as pictured above, but they left themselves with the paradox of the Single Window, solved with a button that collapsed the Tab-Bar, but left very little blank space in control of the DP GUI, ceding that to the OSX Title-Bar instead. It may be difficult to find a compromise that enables you to have more aesthetic space at the top of the Single Window mode unless MOTU can wrench control of the Title-Bars back from Cocoa without upending their Consolidated Windows, which are now very nicely balanced.

Whew! Was it worth the length of this to explore the dilemma of the lost aesthetic gap in the collapsed single-window mode of DP 7.2? Well, what's done is done, here, but hopefully there is more to come on this saga from MOTU in some future version of DP.

Shooshie

[amplidood]

A very well expounded explanation of the issue. Thanks Shoosh.

After reading through that, the solution actually seems very simple. Single windows (with collapsed tab bars) simply need about 5-10 pixels extra below the title bars in order to keep the Info Bars from butting up against them.

So instead of this...


...we'd have this


A huge difference in clarity.

[Shooshie]

A very well expounded explanation of the issue. Thanks Shoosh.

After reading through that, the solution actually seems very simple. Single windows (with collapsed tab bars) simply need about 5-10 pixels extra below the title bars in order to keep the Info Bars from butting up against them.

So instead of this...


...we'd have this


A huge difference in clarity.

That is definitely improved, but where are you going to put those 5 pixels when the windows are integrated into the Consolidated Window? Or when the single window is expanded? If they could come up with a way to ADD them when the single window is closed, that would be good, but I don't want to give up 5 pixels per pane of the CW. And since I keep my main edit windows open full-screen anyway, in separate "Spaces," I just cover the title-bar with the Control Panel and Shortcuts Window. Works for me, but I'm with you in a desire for that space, if it could be made to disappear when not needed.

Shoosh

[amplidood]

Oh, that has to be simple. Just have a different graphic engaged when the tabs are collapsed. The tabs are one graphic right now. There could be a "SingleWindowTop" graphic referred to when in Single mode and the tabs are collapsed.

[Shooshie]

Well, that makes sense! I wonder why they didn't do that in the first place? I guess they figured that if someone wants to close their beautiful tabs, then they must want to reclaim ALL vertical space!

I'd prefer your way.

Shoosh

[amplidood]

This is one coming together nicely...

[amplidood]

I think I'll be showing development progress on my site from now on, and using this board just for discussion and basic communication with MOTU members. It's adding a lot of bandwidth use unfairly, and I think it makes the thread too lengthy.