Posted
Would it be possible to add a optional absolute (hsr) colors to synfire?
Working with container colors as they are designed is very difficult. Blue is no different than grey on the highest layer and I rarely nest a container more than once. There are other ways that nesting is being visualized. The colors are washed out and difficult to discern from one another.
I use colors to organize parts extensively in reaper and cubase, they are sorely missed when working in Synfire
So., 27.03.2011 - 20:38 Permalink
Hi fent,
I agree with the GUI bit. Reapers new themeing is fantastic and the moment I get the opportunity I mean to fix myself up something custom for that.
Adding a simple color control to containers is a fix that might take an hour or two and IS an issue of functionality. I use text, color and nesting to give abstract and formal meaning to the structure. Currently I can only use four colors (red yellow green purple) in a composition and still be able to discern them at a glance. When surrounded by reds, and somewhat distant from a yellow, an orange is too difficult to distinguish from a real yellow. This applies for the rest of the colors.
In reaper I am easily able to distinguish four or five different shades of green, or any color, with ease.
As for the issue of theming and design, I imagine Reapers new WALTER theming system took them six months to code and that was built on top of an existing system. I find Synfires UI very hard to work with as far as ergonomics are concerned and the design is not to my taste. I see very little chance of dev time being spent on aesthetics or ergonomics.
EDIT:
Ideally I'd rather be able to tag containers and have Synfire generate colors dynamically based on tags, or musical properties in the container (key, rhythmic density, and other properties that can be consider for all instruments combined in a container). A simple HSV value just seems more feasable at the moment.
Mo., 28.03.2011 - 02:01 Permalink
That would be helpful. I've had Synfire Pro for 6 or so weeks now. Figuring out how things work IS slow going. But I am so fascinated by the power and potential of this software, I'll work at what ever
I use the color pallette in Logic Pro a lot. After a while you create your own method of using colors, it helps to clarify things.
Mi., 30.03.2011 - 13:11 Permalink
Design and ergonomics are important, although currently other things have a much higher priority (plugin hosting and DAW integration, just to name the two most urgent developments). Theming, let alone skinning, is not on the horizon anytime soon. custom keyboard mappings and similar things definitely come first.
We originally decided for pastel, low contrast container colors, because they better match the current "white score sheet" design scheme that lends itself to the aestetics of notation programs and attempts to avoid visual noise as much as possible.
I agree that higher contrast colors are more ergonomical. We don't yet have a cross-platform color picker widget (Windows and Mac use different ones), but adding one should not be too difficult.
We think about using the same user interface look for Windows an Mac, getting rid of the different widgets. This will make it more easy to come up with an alternative darkly themed design.