2021.04 theme problems

[gmp]

33 minutes ago, Colin Nicholls said:

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).

Your method is so straightforward and easy to simply delete the element in this case - Clip tab. I noticed others saying they'd open 2 instances of Theme Editor and copy and paste elements back and forth. 

Is there any advantage to doing it that way as opposed to your simpler way? And if so, I found no way of opening the Mercury theme. I see no FTH file with that name only Tungsten.

At first Morten's list seems overwhelming, but on closer view there are a lot of duplicates. I would assume it's best to start at the top of the list and go down and skip the duplicates.

Thanks for all your excellent help,

[Colin Nicholls]

16 minutes ago, gmp said:

Is there any advantage to doing it that way as opposed to your simpler way? And if so, I found no way of opening the Mercury theme. I see no FTH file with that name only Tungsten.

Sorry, I may have mis-read your previous post, when I commented about not trying to cut/past from the folder tree. You probably weren't trying to do that.

Okay, here's the thing: @scook has talked about this but it doesn't hurt to repeat it:

Mercury is the default, built-in theme. It doesn't exist as a .sth, it is inside the application.

Tungsten is an overlay. All themes (.sth files) are an overlay to Mercury. There's only one level; if you delete an element from a theme, what remains is the Mercury version.

So, if you want to take a custom theme that was based on Tungsten, and revert it to _the tungsten_ version, you need to cut-n-paste from another theme file.

The easiest and surest way to do this is to create your own "tungsten" theme: Open the Theme Editor, create a new, empty theme, but base it on TUNGSTEN, not Mercury. You will end up with a theme containing all the Tungsten overlay elements. Save this as My_Copy_Of_Tungsten.sth.

Now, cut-n-paste from that theme into your own LOGIC custom theme (assuming it is based on Tungsten and not Mercury which, I confess, I am not sure about).

Okay?

[scook]

I just looked at the Logic theme by Rflint on the old website.

It looks a lot like my Tuncury theme with mostly SONAR Tungsten colors, the flat buttons replaced with dark grey versions of the 3D buttons from Mercury and blue accents.

You might save some time by looking at Tuncury, at a minimum, the new elements will be very close to the correct colors should you copy the need elements into Logic.

Using this as a guide to the new elements 

open Logic in one theme editor instance

open Tuncury in another

copy the new elements from Tuncury into Logic

save-as Logic under a new name.

[gmp]

18 minutes ago, scook said:

I just looked at the Logic theme by Rflint on the old website.

It looks a lot like my Tuncury theme with mostly SONAR Tungsten colors, the flat buttons replaced with dark grey versions of the 3D buttons from Mercury and blue accents.

You might save some time by looking at Tuncury, at a minimum, the new elements will be very close to the correct colors should you copy the need elements into Logic.

Using this as a guide to the new elements 

open Logic in one theme editor instance

open Tuncury in another

copy the new elements from Tuncury into Logic

save-as Logic under a new name.

Thanks for the great clarification. This all makes sense. The only question I have is how do I copy and paste from Tuncury to Logic. I can right click an element, like Clip tab,  in Tuncury and can choose copy or export and when I go to Logic if I right click Clip tab I don't see Paste, only remove and import. How do I copy and paste?  

[scook]

Make sure both instances of the theme edit show the appropriate theme name in the center top of the Window header

Both themes should have the same context menus.

[gmp]

38 minutes ago, scook said:

I just looked at the Logic theme by Rflint on the old website.

It looks a lot like my Tuncury theme with mostly SONAR Tungsten colors, the flat buttons replaced with dark grey versions of the 3D buttons from Mercury and blue accents.

You might save some time by looking at Tuncury, at a minimum, the new elements will be very close to the correct colors should you copy the need elements into Logic.

Using this as a guide to the new elements 

open Logic in one theme editor instance

open Tuncury in another

copy the new elements from Tuncury into Logic

save-as Logic under a new name.

I have both Themes open in different Theme Editors. This time I was able to copy then paste into Logic. 

So do I need to go through Morten's list and do the same for every element? Or do I use View and select Modified, Images and Filter to see what elements were modified first? And then only replace the ones that were modified or do I need to replace every single one? 

[scook]

Morton's list looks like all the changes made to CbB,

Some are image size changes (they must be updated to display correctly)

Some are new images, They will show in Logic as Mercury elements (IOW as the original image), these are optional but in most cases, the Tuncury version, if it is different than the original should be closer to Logic).

There might be some changes made to SONAR after the Logic was made, IDK. There were very few image size changes in SONAR but there may be a couple of new elements. I would not worry about them though.

Bottom line, if something does not look right, compare the two themes.

 

[gmp]

I went through all the changes in "Inspectors" and when I copied Track tab (small), paste wasn't available for that. It was greyed out. Is that because these were later additions to CbB and not present in my 2017 theme? None of the  (small) tabs were able to be pasted.

 I assumed all the Arranger tabs and Tempo tabs were not needed since those are very recent additions, right?

[gmp]

In my Logic theme some of the elements are grayed out in the left folder tree. For Instance - Meter/key View. Does that mean there were no Theme changes to that element, so there's no need to try to copy and paste it?

 

Thanks for your excellent help - this will make a great tutorial for others like me with a minimal Theme knowledge.

[scook]

I am not sure where you are attempting to paste the elements.

I locate the image of the element  in the center of the theme display (not the item in the tree on the left) and use its context menu.

It does not matter when the theme was created the editor shows all the elements in the current Mercury theme with changes based on the user theme loaded.

Greyed out elements in the tree are unmodified.

Don't forget about the help. It is 26 pages of useful info about the editor.

[Matthew White]

@gmp Sorry for the lack of response since my initial comment, I thought I would have time to respond further sooner but didn't due to my 29th wedding anniversary and other matters, thankfully others are providing you with plenty of helpful tips and it looks like you're going to get it sorted and at this stage I don't think there's anything I could add that would help any further, it's easy enough once you've done a few and you should then be able to update your chosen theme whenever updates to Cakewalk make it necessary, you may even be bitten by the bug and create a whole new theme or edit the Logic theme a lot more in depth, either way I wish you the best of luck!

Edited June 22, 2021 by Matthew White

[Matthew White]

23 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.

Wait, What?! 3 years I've been using the editor and been doing it the export/import way! I have so many questions for myself right now, I vaguely remember being able to do it that way when I started but why did I forget and start doing it the long way? Why did I keep doing it the long way all this time? Why did the copy and paste options that appear every time I right click to import or export not jog my memory? ?‍♂️ The time I could have saved!! ? Anyways, Thank you @Starship Krupa for mentioning this, I'll try to remember to use it next time I need it. ?

[gmp]

I got my theme completely updated. Once I got the work done on "Inspectors", there wasn't much left to do. I went through Morten's list and found 90% of the elements were grayed out, indicating there were no tweaks to those parts of the Theme and no need for copy and paste.

I also found a quick way to copy and paste. For instance in "Inspectors" there's Clip Tab. Once you locate that in the Tuncury theme, you can select it on the left in the tree. You can either right click the image on the right of that and choose copy or just right click the tree entry of Clip Tab and choose copy there. Same with paste. It's a little quicker doing it this way, but either way works.

 I opened my new Logic Theme and it all looks exactly the same but ProChannel now shows up in the Inspector like it used to.

Thanks scook and Colin and all. This will be a great tutorial post for others like me that were foggy on the Theme Editor. Once you get into it it's not hard.

[scook]

Keep in mind, some of the elements in CbB today were not part of SONAR when the Logic theme was created.

These elements will show up as unmodified in Logic although had they been around when the theme was created they probably would have been altered to suit the theme. For example, in the changes for 2020.04

Quote

ProChannel > ProChannel category:

• Default Category
• Frequency Category
• Dynamics Category
• Simulation Category
• Distortion Category
• Time Category
• Modulation Category
• Imaging Category
• FX Chain Category
• Analysis Category

all would likely have been modified.

Logic probably started out as a copy of Tungsten.

Like all dark themes some unmodified Mercury bits look OK, others may lack contrast or look out of place.

Regardless, if it works for you, that is all that matters. 

[user 905133]

2 hours ago, gmp said:

Once you get into it it's not hard.

YUP!!!  Glad you finally got it working.

Edited June 22, 2021 by User 905133

[gmp]

1 hour ago, User 905133 said:

YUP!!!  Glad you finally got it working.

And thank you for your patience and trying to help. scook and Colin helped immensely. So nice to have such expertise here

[Starship Krupa]

5 hours ago, gmp said:

my new Logic Theme

So, if you think it's suitable, please post it!

Even if I don't care for a given custom theme, they can help inspire my own efforts.

11 hours ago, Matthew White said:

3 years I've been using the editor and been doing it the export/import way!

I copped it from TYLIP. Sometimes I have 3 instances of Theme Editor open copying and pasting. More than 3 it starts running the risk of error.

With all of the shared elements your many themes, this will be a time saver for sure.

The advantage that export/import has is that the images end up being archived somewhere other than within the .STH files.

[gmp]

2 minutes ago, Starship Krupa said:

So, if you think it's suitable, please post it!

Even if I don't care for a given custom theme, they can help inspire my own efforts.

I copped it from TYLIP. Sometimes I have 3 instances of Theme Editor open copying and pasting. More than 3 it starts running the risk of error.

With all of the shared elements your many themes, this will be a time saver for sure.

The advantage that export/import has is that the images end up being archived somewhere other than within the .STH files.

Yes I'll be happy to post my theme. My MS OneDrive sometimes gets full of other stuff. if I post it there it may be a while before anything else is uploaded there, so I'll do it. Unless someone has a suggestion. It seems to me Cakewalk should have a file area where users can post their presets, etc. maybe scook knows a good place to post it

[Starship Krupa]

36 minutes ago, gmp said:

My MS OneDrive sometimes gets full of other stuff.

I'm a free cloud storage packrat. I use Dropbox, Box, Google Drive, and MEGA for various things. They have different strengths; Dropbox is usually for public sharing, Google Drive is good for transferring music collaborations because their upload speeds aren't too throttled and most people have Google accounts, which makes the sharing easier. MEGA is great for backups because of the humongous amount of storage they give you.

I, too would like to see a central repository for custom Cakewalk themes and color presets, but I also understand that there are issues that might come up for anyone hosting it. It is possible to put offensive content in a theme, in the wallpaper for instance.

[gmp]

51 minutes ago, Starship Krupa said:

I'm a free cloud storage packrat. I use Dropbox, Box, Google Drive, and MEGA for various things. They have different strengths; Dropbox is usually for public sharing, Google Drive is good for transferring music collaborations because their upload speeds aren't too throttled and most people have Google accounts, which makes the sharing easier. MEGA is great for backups because of the humongous amount of storage they give you.

I, too would like to see a central repository for custom Cakewalk themes and color presets, but I also understand that there are issues that might come up for anyone hosting it. It is possible to put offensive content in a theme, in the wallpaper for instance.

I have the Theme in my public folder of OneDrive. I added a Logic Theme folder. So I'll leave it there indefinitely in it's own folder, since it won't cause confusion with many files to sift through like I mentioned before

https://onedrive.live.com/?id=C256E2DAE26B22A5!473&cid=C256E2DAE26B22A5

What I like about the theme is it's very functional,  practical and easier to read and find things. I want trying to be cool - ha ha. Actually I missed a lot of the functionality of Sonar 8.5, which was lost when they decided to be cool. This is in some ways similar. Let me know how you like it

Edited June 23, 2021 by gmp