Amplidood's GUI mod 3.5.2 (always updating first post)

[dewdman42]

Amplidood, I really like your mod so much. Is there any possibility that you may consider making two versions of it, for those of us that don't have a darkened gamma setup? Your pics look darker, richer and more to my liking than how it looks in actual use on my system with default Mac gamma settings.

[amplidood]

Sure, I'd consider that.... may take a little time tho, as there are a lot of graphics involved...

[melenko]

Bravo!
That's all!

[dewdman42]

Thanks Amplidood...it will be much appreciated. I am still using your current mod anyway as its an improvement over factory. Your pics look really nice though. Mainly its the grey backgrounds that matter to me. I don't particularly care if you adjust all the colors, but the large areas of grey..if they were just a little darker, it would be stellar here. Maybe that's less effort?

[amplidood]

Actually, anyone can modify these files to their heart's content. Simply download the free graphics editor "Seashore" (which I use), load up the particular file that you want to adjust, and have at it!! I can't use the normal mac gamma on my macbook pro...it's simply so washed out looking it's ridiculous.

Adjusting colors is very easy with this program. You can select an area, and modify it's brightness, contrast, color hue....whatever. It's a very simple program to figure out.

[dewdman42]

Could you possibly post a list of the files I would need to tweak in order to get the darker grey backgrounds everywhere?

[amplidood]

Just go into the images folder inside DP, view by icon (make the icon size really large), list by date modified....

Then you can see exactly what file contains the particular graphics you are after. All the modded ones will be at the top of the list since they were modified after the originals were released.

[dewdman42]

Right, I looked at them all, but i have no idea which ones I need to change to ONLY effect the grey backgrounds. Is there a single grey backround file somewhere, or do I have to change every single one to have the new grey background?

[amplidood]

It depends on which grey backgrounds you are talking about. The editing windows are mostly affected by the Default Style.xml file, while the mixer is actually controlled by the graphics files. There are so many individual elements it's really hard to know exaclty which ones to tell you to mess with, because I don't know exactly what the areas are that you want to change. That's all going to come down to personal preference, which is why I'm telling everyone how to get in there and do it.

[dewdman42]

k. I will experiment. What I really want to do is find a way to do something very minimally so that I can continue to use your mod as you update it but only have to update a couple things to make it darker the way I want. But I will just have to make some time to figure it out later. Thanks.

[Shooshie]

Dood, your alternate GUI is rocking. Have you talked to anyone from MOTU about this? I think you ought to send a letter to Jim Cooper and Les Quindipan c/o MOTU, Cambridge, and see if they would be interested in offering yours and perhaps others' with an "alternate GUI installer." If you send a letter, include big glossy printouts of some of your best versions along with a disk with some files on it. If they chose to get involved, they could do this from the website if they don't want to put it on the DVD. They may even go a step further and give us something like contextual menus that include coloring any object (or set of objects) from the Mac's colorwheel utility. I guess this has been discussed here before, but your work proves that there is value to it, and it's value they could be taking advantage of.

So, maybe there are people who don't like your particular color choices; post dozens of submissions on the website and let people choose. Or give them the color wheel and make it a DIY project. That's probably the best way, though using someone's scheme through an installer would sure be faster. Seems like an installer might make them rest a little easier when doing tech support for someone, knowing that they've modded their GUI.

I think the activity of this thread -- over 3000 views and over 200 posts -- warrants some attention from MOTU. This isn't just a little bit of DP bling that someone is asking for. There is real interest here. Personally, I haven't used any of these, but I really like looking at your screenshots of some of the versions. I might do some simple mods -- just a little shading in the Mixing Board -- if they gave us control-click color wheel options.

Just my opinions

Shooshie

[amplidood]

k. I will experiment. What I really want to do is find a way to do something very minimally so that I can continue to use your mod as you update it but only have to update a couple things to make it darker the way I want. But I will just have to make some time to figure it out later. Thanks.

Cool. That's all this really is anyway...a giant experiment

Seriously, tho, it's not really a huge list of files that I'm modding and just looking at them it's pretty easy to see what does what. There are a few things that were a little mysterious at first....trying to figure out exactly what DP was doing with the graphics was a lot of trial and error. I think Shooshie has made a great point that it's really beyond my ability to help everyone learn how to tweak exactly what it is they want to tweak, and that it's time for MOTU to pick up the ball and enable DP to have some built in GUI control.

[Mr_Clifford]

Just wanted to say that your GUI mod looks REALLY good. I love the MIDI plug icon on the MIDI tracks on the mixer. I've always hated how hard it is to tell MIDI tracks from audio tracks in the Mixer. Something I'd love to see is for disabled tracks to be greyed out in the mixer like the way Pro Tools does. That one's probably beyond the bounds of a simple GUI mod though I guess.

[amplidood]

Thanks for all the kind words all, really. One thing I've learned through this process is you can't please everyone, so I really appreciate it when those who are finding the mod useful take the time to say so.

Thanks especially to Shoosh for his thoughtful post. I wish I were a real programmer...I would have already made a mod-installing piece of software. Till then, we can only hope....

[amplidood]

I just realized that getting rid of the arrows that pop up when highlighting an insert also gets rid of the arrows for pull down menus in the control panel. I guess if you already know where they are, it's not a problem. Can't get everything perfect, I guess