How do I get those fancy Start Screen pictures for my own templates?

[Starship Krupa]

Title says it.

When I'm at the Start Screen and click on "New Project," the stock templates that come with Cakewalk have these lovely hi-res photos of mixing desks and so forth. When I alter them and save them under different names, I get a plain generic icon. I want to assign the purty ones. I know how to add my own pictures for .CWP files so they show up in the recent projects screen, but I want the nice vignetted pictures on my templates, darn it.

How do I work this?

[Agent Phil]

I should clarify my earlier answer...

Step 1 - Save As... a template to the Project Templates folder e.g "MyTemplate.cwt"
This template now works fine, but doesn't have the pretty image in the Start Screen.

Step 2 - Create the image
Create your image, and put it in the Project Templates folder (named as per the template, e.g. "MyTemplate.cwt.png")

Step 3 - Associate the image with the template
In Cakewalk, load the template and then re-save it (as a template) back to the Project Templates folder (overwrite the existing file).

From here on in, you should see your defined image in the Start Screen

[scook]

I believe the artwork (F in the image below) in notes is used for projects and project templates

When I added artwork and saved  the project template under a new name, the image appeared in the start screen.

[scook]

My understanding is there is an automatic assignment algorithm based on the template name and the default images are stored in the Cakewalk resource files.

There has never been a lot of documentation available on this subject.

[User 905133]

FWIW, I have had no troubles assigning images to recent tracks via the Notes > Artwork method, but also have had no success affecting *.cwt files in the templates folder so far.  I even tried tweaking a factory template that had an image and saving it as a *.cwt file, and that process lost the factory-supplied image from the original.

Edited August 24, 2020 by User 905133

[User 905133]

Thanks for the question and for the answer, I never use the start screen and I never use the image option in notes, but I will probably find a use for this!

Footnote: Just tested this: If there is existing image pulled up by Cakewalk itself and then the image is overridden via Notes, deleting the changed image reverted to the former image.  

 

Edited August 22, 2020 by User 905133
to add a footnote and to remove "probably"

[Starship Krupa]

That's not working for me, @scook. Maybe I'm choosing the wrong pictures. I used a large JPG, but now I wonder if it has to be a BMP or PNG? Or within a certain size?

Where did you get that nice picture of the Les Paul? Is it in the track icons folder?

[Starship Krupa]

To better illustrate what I'm talking about, what is going on, and what I'm  trying to accomplish, here's a screen grab of part of my Start Screen.

It shows a couple of templates that are altered versions of Basic, with the generic ugly icon. It shows Basic, with a nice picture of a studio monitor. It shows a few of the stock templates, and then most odd, it shows one I rolled myself, Drums, with a picture that Cakewalk inserted all by itself. I guess there's an AI in there that tries to parse the name of the template and sticks an icon to it if it can match it.

I also have a couple that have the "screen grab of the Track View" icon.

I'd like to have control over what these icons look like, preferably the pretty, hi-res vignetted ones like the ones that come with the default templates.

[scook]

32 minutes ago, Starship Krupa said:

Maybe I'm choosing the wrong pictures. I used a large JPG, but now I wonder if it has to be a BMP or PNG? Or within a certain size?

Where did you get that nice picture of the Les Paul? Is it in the track icons folder?

It's all in the link

[Starship Krupa]

I know that that's how it's supposed to work. My issue is that it isn't working that way for me on two different systems.

First, when I assign an image as described in the link, it doesn't appear as the Start Screen icon. I get the ugly icon as seen in the picture.

Second, I don't even know where to find those good-looking images that the stock templates use. Cakewalk assigned one to one of my templates automatically, which was weird, but not unwelcome.

Maybe this is more bug report material than how-to.

[Starship Krupa]

Maybe I'll just make a bunch of dummy templates called "mixing board" and "monitor speaker" and "rock guitar" and so forth and if Cakewalk assigns the icons, I can Snip & Sketch them.?

I'll try using some images that are 600x600 bitmap, too, I have a hunch that startscreen might take to those better than large JPG's that it has to crunch.

[Starship Krupa]

For anyone who's interested, I tried the Snip & Sketch trick, and it didn't work for templates.

It worked per the documentation for the Recent Projects screen, but not New Project.

I sure can't figure out the logic of the New Project screen's icon assignment. I renamed the stock Basic template and it retained the "studio monitor" icon, but when I opened it and modified it and saved it as Basic.cwt, it came up with the generic icon.

On my notebook computer, my self-created Drums.cwt shows a Slingerland kit (as befits the former Gibson ownership of both brands), while on my main system, Drums.cwt shows the thumbnail view of the Track View.

I think this has turned out to be a feature request, to allow custom Start Screen icon assignment for user-created templates.

[Jim Fogle]

@Starship Krupa, take a look at c://Cakewalk Content/Cakewalk Core/Track Icons

[Starship Krupa]

Thanks, Jim, I know about those, and I can assign them using Notes, and they will show up as icons in the Recent Projects area of the Start Screen, but not in New Project (where the Templates are).

Is the Start Screen not such popular a feature? It's how I navigate into Cakewalk.  Those thumbnails of my projects and all kind of spark interest that just clicking on a file name doesn't as much, which is why I'd like to get some nice looking icons on my custom templates.

[Jim Fogle]

I use the start screen and I agree there are some neat looking icons.  The icon of the Slingerland drum kit is what made me think of the path I provided.  I used that icon.  That sucker's pretty.

[Starship Krupa]

I especially enjoy seeing the Slingerland logo on the Cakewalk drum icons because I, like my namesake and drum hero, Gene Starship....sorry, Krupa, play a Slingerland kit. Still waiting to see what DW do with the brand. I think they got it at the same garage sale where BandLab picked up Cakewalk. I'm sure by this time, Slingerland consists of  the name and logo and that's it. It might include the trademark "Radio King."

[Jim Fogle]

The icons include a Ludwig kit (ugly), TAMA and DW.  It would be nice if they had a Gretsch or Premier kit too.

Strange how times change, Ludwig use to be in Illinois.  Now their factory is in Wilson, North Carolina a nice day trip from where I live.

Edited September 7, 2020 by Jim Fogle
Added "Gretsch"

[Klaus]

Just an observation:

Adding an own image (via Notes > Artwork) for a Project Template, which then will show up in Start Screen for New Projects works like Scook mentioned if you save the Project Template under a new name but only by overwriting the existent template name.

Only changing the existing name by left-clicking into the name (e.g. adding a suffix like "My Super-Duper Template" to "My Super-Duper Template - 02" without typing everything new) doesn't work i.e. the added image will not show up under New Projects.

Small difference but maybe a reason why it doesn't work for everyone, depending on your "renaming" habit.

 

[Starship Krupa]

Ha, I finally found at least some of them by poking around in the Cakewalk directories.

C:\Program Files\Cakewalk\Rapture Session\Resources\Instruments\Thumbnails contains the 22 images used for Rapture Session's patches, and they are all in the nice overhead lit, vignetted style of the stock templates' images. Some are the same images, some of the Start Screen Template images are missing (the mixing consoles), and there are images there that aren't on the stock templates.

Now I just need to figure out how to reliably make them "stick."

[Michel Camacho]

On 1/8/2021 at 3:44 AM, Starship Krupa said:

Ha, I finally found at least some of them by poking around in the Cakewalk directories.

C:\Program Files\Cakewalk\Rapture Session\Resources\Instruments\Thumbnails contains the 22 images used for Rapture Session's patches, and they are all in the nice overhead lit, vignetted style of the stock templates' images. Some are the same images, some of the Start Screen Template images are missing (the mixing consoles), and there are images there that aren't on the stock templates.

Now I just need to figure out how to reliably make them "stick."

I can't find that location on my pc. Please I'm interested too in using the nice images in the start screen.  Tell me what you have figured out 

[Michel Camacho]

 

On 1/8/2021 at 3:44 AM, Starship Krupa said:

Ha, I finally found at least some of them by poking around in the Cakewalk directories.

C:\Program Files\Cakewalk\Rapture Session\Resources\Instruments\Thumbnails contains the 22 images used for Rapture Session's patches, and they are all in the nice overhead lit, vignetted style of the stock templates' images. Some are the same images, some of the Start Screen Template images are missing (the mixing consoles), and there are images there that aren't on the stock templates.

Now I just need to figure out how to reliably make them "stick."

This guy 2 days ago got a clue. There's nothing clear yet but we are very close!!