MOTUnation.com

Hideout wrote:Besides, you can always lower the brightness of your monitor.

The problem with that is that plug-in windows will become too dark, as a result.

The more I see of this new interface the more it bothers me.

The knobs and buttons are a terrible mix of raster ("realistic") and vector ("digital") interface elements. The raster elements continue in the DP tradition, but they clash horribly with the now-predominant vector elements, which look like a bad Flash app or a designer's GUI sketch in Illustrator.

And they've yet again ignored OS X's standards for UI design, but this time they're using their own checkboxes, pulldowns, etc. which is just madness. Madness, I tell ya!

There was such promise after seeing the interfaces for the newest plugs that came w/ DP 5.

666 wrote:I don't want DP6 to look like Logic or anything but, this blaring white look is pure torture for me.

Would OS X's white-on-black setting help?

It's in System Preferences > Universal Access...

taylor12k wrote:easier on the eyes, the black is.. but the colors and shadows reversed out look a bit odd...

i vote for skins in 6.1

I don't think you'll see skins EVER. I know if I were MOTU I wouldn't do it. You give up control over the appearance of your app and if someone makes a really *LOUSY* skin that makes your app look awful, you don't want any confusion in the marketplace over it. Any commercial professional DAWs that support skins? It's different than MP3 players.

One thing that might help is letting the user set the color of background of the TO and SE. The might perhaps have a couple of alternate themes, but stopping short of user-created skins.

666 wrote:

Hideout wrote:Besides, you can always lower the brightness of your monitor.

The problem with that is that plug-in windows will become too dark, as a result.

One thing I would also suggest is go into the Universal Access control panel and adjust the contrast setting in that panel. Mine was set to full contrast and especially on backlit LCD screens, full contrast can look bad. I think that might help a lot!

Having wished for this upgrade so badly, I am a bit ashamed to say that the new colors are a bit heavy on the eyes for me. I also preferred the gray background

Don't get me wrong, the GUI improvement are good ideas in general and I'll get used to it but I'm not to hyped with the white background thing...

I guess there's a learning curve to everything... I'll wait a week or two before making too much judgement.

my thoughts exactly.

as for skins.. yeah, maybe i wouldn't want them after all.. seems to "cheapen" the program in a way... but, would MOTU ever go back? or change again? seems it would be an admission of a mistake, which they may not want to do.

Dwetmaster wrote:Having wished for this upgrade so badly, I am a bit ashamed to say that the new colors are a bit heavy on the eyes for me. I also preferred the gray background

Don't get me wrong, the GUI improvement are good ideas in general and I'll get used to it but I'm not to hyped with the white background thing...

I guess there's a learning curve to everything... I'll wait a week or two before making too much judgement.

Kinda weird thread, given that it appears that most of you don't even have DP6 yet.

My mom used to always say "don't borrow trouble." So I am going to wait until I use it before I decide.

At any rate when I go thru this section:

http://www.motu.com/products/software/d ... rface.html

I see some black on white in some settings palettes but I see lots of black on gray and black on color, and color on color color too. Mostly I see a cleaner interface.

For those that have 6 and are bothered by the UI - have you tried adjusting the white point of your display from the System Preferences settings? I seem to remember you can adjust the white point to be more yellow or more blue. Would this help?

James Steele wrote:

taylor12k wrote:easier on the eyes, the black is.. but the colors and shadows reversed out look a bit odd...

i vote for skins in 6.1

I don't think you'll see skins EVER. I know if I were MOTU I wouldn't do it. You give up control over the appearance of your app and if someone makes a really *LOUSY* skin that makes your app look awful, you don't want any confusion in the marketplace over it.

I totally agree with you on that point, James. I'm not a fan of "skins" but to be able to slightly "tone down" the overall "whiteness" of the Mixing Board window would be grand. Also, I LOVE the new look options of the Sequence Editor window (I'm going by MOTU's representation on their website). It looks great. The ONLY thing that bothers me is the Mixing Board window.

Hey, I'm just being honest. I hope it doesn't sound like I'm complaining.

I want a DP that I can work with for hours and hours. As it stands, it will hurt my eyes, in the long run.

Well, seeing that the UI has been my biggest complaint about DP in the past, I'm willing to give this one a shot. I don't mind gray interfaces, but DP has had a bad case of, "MOST EXTREME BEVEL!". They've had to make buttons rediculously large because the bevels take up 1/2 of them, it's just too much. All the screenshots that I've seen of DP6 seem to have a more minimalistic feel, the way that Leopard does when compared to the previous OSX instalments (dock not withstanding).

Sorry to hear that they're not conforming to OSX standards though. OSX is a brilliant scheme for conforming app interface design, not sure why MOTU seems to want to depart from it so much.

666 wrote:I totally agree with you on that point, James. I'm not a fan of "skins" but to be able to slightly "tone down" the overall "whiteness" of the Mixing Board window would be grand.

I think what you're refering to is something along the lines of Adobe's current CS3 UI design, in which you can simply scale up/down the background color. The only unfortunate part about this is that it doesn't always play nice with system default colors, like selection highlights. Adobe After Effects can be an absolute disaster when on certain brightness settings, because either highlighted or unhighlighted text suddenly becomes unreadable, depending upon your settings. I've never seen it done correctly, but I'm fairly confident that it could be done right with enough scrutiny.

I don't think skins are the way to go. However, I think a few different selectable color selections would be REALLY nice.

I'd like darker than even 5.13 personally. BUT, I understand this is a personal preference only.

Maybe in 6.1 they can introduce 3 levels of color

Dark (leaded)
Medium (unleaded)
Light (high octane)



My DP6 arrived this morning. I have not installed it yet, it's looking at me all crazy like saying *please* at the moment

As a GUI designer (amongst other hats), I can sympathise with why MOTU wouldn't be eager to provide multiple looks-and-feels, skins, or even appearances settings. It isn't as easy as you think, as you then have to adjust other colours to make sure they show up ideally against the chosen background. We support it in my app, but only in the main windows, as certain toolkit widgets require significant look-and-feel overrides to consistently apply such preferences in a cohesive way.

I don't know what toolkits (if any) MOTU is now employing for their GUI work, but even if it's 100% in-house ground-up framework code, it is decidely non-trivial to support multiple appearances, whether background colours, skins, or overall look-and-feel (platform adherence, etc.).

The low contrast of DP5 does affect me in my poorly-lit project studio, but I don't like garishness either. I suspect there are settings, such as some of the ones mentioned here, that will help with the brightness of DP6 without having negative side effects on pop-up windows, plug-ins, etc.

The clearer rendering makes a huge difference. Antialiased text, on modern equipment (it has a negative impact on clarity on much older equipment), can allow for more efficient GUI layout and sizings while simultaneously improving overall clarity. The same with better vectorising of GUI controls (button outlines, beveling, etc.).

also.. what's up with all of that wasted space around the counters up top? overall DP5, i feel, has a much more professional design.. DP6 seems like it's trying too hard to be modern and designed.

but, again... give it a couple of weeks..

i felt that way about OSX, too.. but, of course OS9 seems like cave paintings to me now.

muxlow wrote:The knobs and buttons are a terrible mix of raster ("realistic") and vector ("digital") interface elements. The raster elements continue in the DP tradition, but they clash horribly with the now-predominant vector elements, which look like a bad Flash app or a designer's GUI sketch in Illustrator.

Ditto. There's something about this that looks unfinished. I definitely like the direction of the new UI –the lighter feel and extra negative space aids usability IMO– but things like the mixing window look less unified and cohesive.

muxlow wrote:And they've yet again ignored OS X's standards for UI design, but this time they're using their own checkboxes, pulldowns, etc. which is just madness. Madness, I tell ya!

I know. If you're going to stray from the API, make it better not worse.

Honestly, any changes in DP's GUI are going to be jarring at first. I think people need to give it a few weeks.