And suddenly..

[Anders Madsen]

..as I started Cakewalk, it had a hybrid theme, dark and light grey in a mix. I opened prefs/themes, and only tungsten and mercury were available. My Cakewalk content/themes folder is on F:  (Has allways been)
Strange thing is: Tungsten and mercury are not there. Just the custom ones, including the one i lost are there.
There is no "Cakewalk content" folder on my C drive.
So where are the available Tungsten and Mercury themes?

[scook]

Mercury is the name given to the resource files used by CbB.

The resource files are stored in the program folder.

The default program folder path is "C:\Program Files\Cakewalk\Cakewalk Core".

TungstenTheme.fth is a theme formatted like the user themes except it too is stored in the program folder.

 

[Anders Madsen]

Thx a lot, scook. Can I put my other themes in "Cakewalk core"?

[scook]

No, they must be in the "Cakewalk Content\Cakewalk Themes"

While I use the default location for Cakewalk Content "C:\Cakewalk Content" if I were to relocate it, I would create a directory junction from the default location to the new location.

For example if I moved "C:\Cakewalk Content" to "F:\Cakewalk Content", I would open a command window as administrator and type

mklink /j "C:\Cakewalk Content" "F:\Cakewalk Content"

Once that is done there is no need to change anything in the registry or program preferences as the OS knows to use "F:\Cakewalk Content" whenever a program tries to access  "C:\Cakewalk Content"

[Anders Madsen]

Now I understand why there was a sudden change; I disabled the folder-protection-thing in windows for a second..
That registry operation, though.. Ouch!

[Anders Madsen]

I tried to put a copy of "Cakewalk Content\Cakewalk Themes" on C drive, but the themes in there are still not available.
How can I make Cakewalk look for themes there? (Or, preferably on F)

[scook]

AFAIK, themes are hard-coded to reside in the "Cakewalk Themes" folder under "Cakewalk Content" where ever that may be.

All Cakewalk DAWs and CbB use the same "Cakewalk Content" location.

By default it is  "C:\Cakewalk Content" 

The path is stored in the registry in ContentDir under 

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Cakewalk Music Software

Folders in "Cakewalk Content" cannot be compressed.

[Anders Madsen]

Thanks a lot. I should be able to find that key, and edit correspondingly. Very much appreciated! 

[pwal³]

would be nice if this user-changeable stuff was a config setting rather than hard-coded, like VST folder etc

[Anders Madsen]

I agree. I could not find the key under "Content locations" nor in "Theme"

Edited September 30, 2021 by Anders Madsen

[scook]

Directory junctions are much easier than messing with the registry

[pwal³]

1 minute ago, scook said:

Directory junctions are much easier than messing with the registry

but the best practice is to avoid the registry at all, directory junctions are beyond most users' tech knowledge and are a kludge (like asio4all)

[Anders Madsen]

Sad to say, the Directory junction did not work either..
Also: I can start the editor from prefs..

 

Edited September 30, 2021 by Anders Madsen

[scook]

1 hour ago, pwalpwal said:

directory junctions are beyond most users' tech knowledge

When I suggest using them there is almost always an example in the post.

They are not that hard to create and much easier and safer than editing the registry.

[scook]

1 hour ago, Anders Madsen said:

Sad to say, the Directory junction did not work either..
Also: I can start the editor from prefs..

 

To recap

• there are user created themes that do not show up in the theme drop down in preferences in CbB 2021.04 or newer and
• the themes are compatible with CbB 2021.04 and
• the theme filenames have the file extension sth and
• the themes are stored in an uncompressed folder called "Cakewalk Themes" under "Cakewalk Content" and
• the path specified in ContentDir in HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Cakewalk Music Software resolves to the "Cakewalk Content" folder containing the "Cakewalk Themes" folder.

If all this is true, this is a problem for support@cakewalk.com

[pwal³]

16 minutes ago, scook said:

When I suggest using them there is almost always an example in the post.

They are not that hard to create and much easier and safer than editing the registry.

sure, but what do you think about my other point? (avoiding registry at all, it's a ms best practice)

 

[Anders Madsen]

Ok. An update made the old *.sth files incompatible.

Edited September 30, 2021 by Anders Madsen

[scook]

There must be

ContentLocations is under HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Cakewalk Music Software\Cakewalk\Core\ContentLocations

ContentDir is here

several level up from  HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Cakewalk Music Software\Cakewalk\Core\ContentLocations

[scook]

13 minutes ago, pwalpwal said:

sure, but what do you think about my other point? 

Not much

[Anders Madsen]

Yes, scook, I finally found it. It has the correct path, but the files are *.sth.
I'm off to find some newer ones. Thanks a lot, man.