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2021.04 theme problems


gmp

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4 minutes ago, sjoens said:

"Then there is no excuse for people not reading the manual!! "

 

The very 1st words of the manual:

Cakewalk Theme Editor allows you to easily customize the look of Cakewalk by editing existing UI themes or
creating your own UI themes.

The mechanics of customization is easy.

Creating new artwork can be a challenge.

Doing a thorough is very tedious

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18 hours ago, sjoens said:

I think the "overlay" idea was to use  the "Import" feature to overlay a custom theme on one already open. I personally get mixed results (no pun intended) when trying this.

Just in case it wasn't clear from the context or my earlier posts, my intended use of overlays is for small sets of elements, not an entire theme. 

2021-06-21: Example related to the general use of "overlays" but unrelated to this thread removed. 

Edited by User 905133
Example related to the general use of "overlays" removed. 
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Given users have no control over what must be changed to stay current, the "overlay" system would need to be maintained just like the themes or the current import/export system.

I think we will see a new CbB UI before there are changes to the Theme Editor.

 

 

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16 hours ago, scook said:

. . . to stay current, the "overlay" system would need to be maintained just like the themes or the current import/export system.

I agree!!  That's why I really appreciate that a list of UI changes is maintained and easily available (plus now we have a link to it so we don't have to search for it).

Edited by User 905133
side issues removed
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Yeah, let's keep it as unconfusing as it mostly already is now. :)

Interesting that the collapsed CB comes 2 ways - vertical & horizontal. Each module has its own horizontal background while they share a common "vertical" background that's "overlaid" by a transparent symbol unique to each module.

BTW, what they call "vertical" looks horizontal to me.

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Is there a link we can click on that will take us to the new updated themes? Right now it seems you just have to go through all the posts in this Forum and find ones that say Themes and hope that the person actually gave a link to it. Does Cakewalk have a [public upload section for users to upload Presets, Themes, etc

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46 minutes ago, gmp said:

Is there a link we can click on that will take us to the new updated themes? Right now it seems you just have to go through all the posts in this Forum and find ones that say Themes and hope that the person actually gave a link to it. Does Cakewalk have a [public upload section for users to upload Presets, Themes, etc

Yes there is.

https://discuss.cakewalk.com/index.php?/search/&type=forums_topic&tags=theme&search_and_or=or&sortby=newest

 

EDIT. Oh what the heck. It's in my sig now. 

CAVEAT: This depends on AUTHORS using TAGs effectively. Tag your theme with "theme" and it'll appear in the list.

Edited by Colin Nicholls
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45 minutes ago, Colin Nicholls said:

Yes there is.

https://discuss.cakewalk.com/index.php?/search/&type=forums_topic&tags=theme&search_and_or=or&sortby=newest

 

EDIT. Oh what the heck. It's in my sig now. 

CAVEAT: This depends on AUTHORS using TAGs effectively. Tag your theme with "theme" and it'll appear in the list.

Thanks Colin you link was very good and in it someone gave a download link to the old Sonar themes almost all were created by Elffin. I wonder if he's still around?

I found the logic theme that I use in the downloads

https://app.box.com/s/jcaqb2lpcpi9f16uq99b1zvo9fmatnje?page=1

 

 

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9 hours ago, User 905133 said:

This sounds familiar.  I seem to remember a discussion about this (possibly in the 2021.04 thread?).**  If I am remembering correctly, is it safe to assume that you never repaired the theme?  Maybe I am misremembering, but I thought you had experience with tweaking themes and were going to fix the element(s).  If I had offered to help but dropped the ball, I apologize.  (I have zero experience designing themes myself, but I have made tweaks).

**ADDENDUM:  Found it! You have people in the current thread with more extensive theme experience than I have; so, I will defer to them.  But, to better understand the issue (assuming it is the same), they might want to review the previous discussion.

PS: Not sure about this, but it might help others to better help if you were to post your last working version of the theme and a link to the original theme before you tweaked it.

Ok here are my theme files 

https://onedrive.live.com/?id=C256E2DAE26B22A5!105&cid=C256E2DAE26B22A5

logic GP 21 old.sth - I used this one since 2017 until 2021.04

and then saved it in the new Theme editor to this:

logic GP 21.sth

the oldest version or the themes I have is named:

logical.sth

I'm not sure why this name is slightly different from  the old Sonar Themes website that I downloaded

logic.sth

But all 4 of these theme files are about the same size, so they must all be the same theme.

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1 hour ago, sjoens said:

Elffin hosted a depository but didn't make most of them. Author's name will be in the Properties box in T.E. if they bothered to add it.

One Logic theme author's original post.

Very good investigative work. You found the original post by the creator of the Logic Theme - RFLint. I even see my posts in the thread and how others were commenting on what a good theme it was

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15 hours ago, Colin Nicholls said:

This post should tell you everything that needs reviewing, it's not vague at all.

Open your theme, and if necessary, delete all the custom images that have been altered for each successive release, reverting to default. That will give you a working theme. You can then update the images to match the theme.

I must admit that all this about overlays and whatnot is baffling.

Themes have needed compatibility updates twice since I started publishing mine about 6 months ago. I do pretty much exactly as you say. It takes a matter of minutes to delete the non-compliant images and at that point I have a working theme, maybe with a couple of buttons that don't quite match. Maybe I can drop better placeholders in from Tungsten. It only takes me as long as updated whatever handful of images have changed to have it ready to publish.

If I had a 3rd-party theme I was as attached to as much as the OP seems to be to the Logic-esque one, and couldn't work with an editing program to update the buttons, I'd probably just use it as-is with Mercury or Tungsten images.

I make great use of the shortcut of opening two instances of Theme Editor and copying and pasting between them. This saves a LOT of time and effort as opposed to exporting images as .PNG or .BMP and then importing them. Works well with colors, too.

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14 minutes ago, Starship Krupa said:
20 hours ago, Colin Nicholls said:

This post should tell you everything that needs reviewing, it's not vague at all.

Open your theme, and if necessary, delete all the custom images that have been altered for each successive release, reverting to default. That will give you a working theme. You can then update the images to match the theme.

I must admit that all this about overlays and whatnot is baffling.

Agreed and the recommendation in @Colin Nicholls's post is essentially the same info the OP received when 2021.04 was released

16 minutes ago, Starship Krupa said:

I make great use of the shortcut of opening two instances of Theme Editor and copying and pasting between them. This saves a LOT of time and effort as opposed to exporting images as .PNG or .BMP and then importing them. Works well with colors, too.

Yes, copy and paste is the easiest for me too.

I have only used export once to send specific elements to another user.

 

Image changes have been more frequent with CbB than SONAR. I suspect this and the impact on functionality prompted the theme check at startup added in 2021.04.

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1 hour ago, scook said:

. . . the recommendation in @Colin Nicholls's post is essentially the same info the OP received when 2021.04 was released

I was far too diplomatic when I replied:

23 hours ago, User 905133 said:

This sounds familiar.  I seem to remember a discussion about this (possibly in the 2021.04 thread?).**  If I am remembering correctly, is it safe to assume that you never repaired the theme?  Maybe I am misremembering, but I thought you had experience with tweaking themes and were going to fix the element(s).  If I had offered to help but dropped the ball, I apologize.  (I have zero experience designing themes myself, but I have made tweaks).

I should have said what I initially thought: "Why are you bringing this up again when you already got expert advice?" and just posted the link to the previous discussion and the one a few weeks before that one. 

 

Edited by User 905133
incidental remark removed; to --> too correction
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8 hours ago, Starship Krupa said:

I make great use of the shortcut of opening two instances of Theme Editor and copying and pasting between them.

Thanks. Never thought to try that.

Normally I double click a graphic in T.E. to have it open in PS where I change it & save it back to T.E.  This method lets me change the size if I want. Export/Import won't allow that. Curious to see if copy&paste will.

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I'm going to maintain my Logic theme myself. So here's what I'm doing:

Open my Theme in theme editor. Double click on TungstenTheme.fth in Cakewalk Core to open a 2nd theme editor. It says untitled but I assume this is Tungsten.  I looked at Morten's guide to the changes here

https://discuss.cakewalk.com/index.php?/topic/13621-psa-theme-changes-updated-17-may-2021/

I see under "Inspectors" Clip tab as one of the changes. In the theme editor for Tungsten I see a folder on the left named Inspectors and see Clip tab, so I right clicked on it and hit copy. If I go back to the theme editor of my Logic theme and right click on Clip tab I can choose to remove or import but not paste. What's the best way to proceed forward?

Or do  I simply choose remove and assume that it will now be the default Clip tab without me having to import or paste it?

I also tried the Views and selected Modified, Images, and Toggle filter (on), so I can see what images have been modified and need to be replaced with the default ones.

Am I doing this right so far?

 

 

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1 minute ago, gmp said:

I see a folder on the left named Inspectors and see Clip tab, so I right clicked on it and hit copy. If I go back to the theme editor of my Logic theme and right click on Clip tab I can choose to remove or import but not paste.

You can cut and paste individual elements from the right-hand pane, not folders from the tree.

But you can also just remove the item and it will revert to default (although, yes, it will be the Mercury default, not the Tungsten default).

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