These new fly-out menus....

[Starship Krupa]

As a generally darker theme person, I'd probably choose this look most of the time anyway, but I suspect that my lighter theme-loving brethren and sistern will be looking forward to such time as we can lighten it up. Otherwise, I think it looks pretty spiffy, especially compared to what we had just 6 months ago:

[Canopus]

Indeed, some of the most recent additions to CbB seem to ignore user themes. Like the new Export dialog in 2021.09 EA1. It’s hard-coded dark so whether you open it in Mercury, Tungsten, or any user theme that’s how it will look. Even the Mute and Solo buttons in that dialog are home-grown instead of fetched from the customizable Mute and Solo buttons found in Track View. Same for the Add Track dialog as well as the Set Category dialog in the browser. Not a big issue if you’re using a dark theme, but if it’s bright it might look a bit awkward. Perhaps those dialogs are based on some third-party framework that makes it hard to extract properties from theme files. Or maybe it’s just a hint of the future.

[Colin Nicholls]

@#$%#$%.

Add Track > Instrument is still the correct polarity.

Can't they at least check to see if the current theme is based on TUNGSTEN or MERCURY and select menu colors to match? 

[User 905133]

Are you talking about the change in the newest EA Version:

   v.     ?

Clarification: image 1 (dark text on light background) is from when I rolled back to 2021.06; image 2 (white on black) is from 2021.09 EA. 

Edited August 27, 2021 by User 905133
to add a clarification

[Starship Krupa]

7 hours ago, Colin Nicholls said:

Can't they at least check to see if the current theme is based on TUNGSTEN or MERCURY and select menu colors to match?

Apparently they do, as witnessed by @User 905133.

This might be one of those things where you sometimes need exit and restart Cakewalk for it to pick it up, but kudos to the Bakerzoids for doing this.

When I did this screenshot last night, I had switched from Racing Green to Mercury.

Now we need to figure out how it's detected. @Ben Staton?

[User 905133]

3 hours ago, Starship Krupa said:

Apparently they do, as witnessed by @User 905133.

This might be one of those things where you sometimes need exit and restart Cakewalk for it to pick it up, but kudos to the Bakerzoids for doing this.

When I did this screenshot last night, I had switched from Racing Green to Mercury.

Now we need to figure out how it's detected. @Ben Staton?

Sorry for not being clear.  I was just wondering if the discussion was about the EA version. 

For me, I got the regular version (black letters on light grey background) when I rolled back to 2021.06.  However, each time I installed the 2021.09 EA version both the right-click context menu for the FX Bin in the Track View and the Console View was white lettering on a black background .  There was no user choice that I could see.  I got the same white letters on a black background no matter which theme I used.  

I originally asked if that was intentional, but after 4 pages in the EA thread, no one commented, so I assumed it was an intended across the board change.  I recall someone had something like this. 

I will double check now.

YUP: Just like yesterday, under 2021.09 EA I get the white letters on black background for both Mercury and Tungsten when right clicking under the FX Bin (1) in the Track View, (2) in the Console View, and (as I just discovered) (3) in the Inspector.  I deleted my comments about this (asking if it was intentional), because the last time I said something [about the L/R port numbers in the EA thread] there was a lot of backlash--including a comment about us olde tymers not thinking there was a reason for it.  ? 

 

Edited August 27, 2021 by User 905133
updated comments

[sjoens]

One thing requested was borders or shadowing around each window tier so higher tiers didn't blend into lower tiers when overlapping them.

[User 905133]

1 minute ago, sjoens said:

One thing requested was borders or shadowing around each window tier so higher tiers didn't blend into lower tiers when overlapping them.

Yeah--that's what I was remembering.  Thanks for saving me from having to look for it.

[Starship Krupa]

1 hour ago, User 905133 said:

the last time I said something [about the L/R port numbers in the EA thread] there was a lot of backlash--including a comment about us olde tymers not thinking there was a reason for it.  ? 

Yikes, I don't want to give the impression that your (or anyone else's, barring trolls) opinions aren't valid or welcome. I don't see opposing viewpoints as "backlash," heck, I've tossed out many that have been shot down or ignored. No opinion is more or less valid than yours.

I think at the time I was just trying to make the point that things like the L/R port naming may be something that long time users don't even notice because they're just used to them, whereas for newer users (which I still consider myself to be, even after 3 1/2 years), they are a pain in the neck.

Anyway, although I like the darker menus, I hope that someday there's a switch, either in Preferences or Theme Editor, that lets us choose light or dark. They look "off" with Nickel Mint, my newest theme, which is a light one.

[Mark Morgon-Shaw]

I would like it more if it matched my Theme ☺️

[sjoens]

Now that themeing is established one would think additions & changes would honor/honour it.

[Colin Nicholls]

Well, that's a relief. The '99 build puts the FX plug-in flyouts back to "normal", to match the instrument plugin menus. Must have been a bug. 

[Starship Krupa]

15 hours ago, Colin Nicholls said:

Must have been a bug.

I would prefer to think that it was a peek forward to a time when this look may be selected by the user or theme. ?

[User 905133]

FYI: as of 2021.09 EA build 099 these menus have been reverted to a black on light grey, though from what I see on my PC, the background grey is a darker that 2021.06 and the highlight color is darker.

Also, there is now a border around the fly-out menu when we expand a category.  To me the border is a definite improvement because it makes seeing the expansion fly-out much easier.

Edited August 28, 2021 by User 905133
to reduce ambiguity ["this" changed to "the border"]

[Matthew White]

As I prefer dark themes I liked this change a lot, I was rather hoping it would stay and also be extended to the Instrument menus but that's just my own personal preference though ideally I think these should be themeable. We can but hope! ?

[User 905133]

24 minutes ago, Matthew White said:

As I prefer dark themes I liked this change a lot, I was rather hoping it would stay and also be extended to the Instrument menus but that's just my own personal preference though ideally I think these should be themeable. We can but hope! ?

I am thinking the  black lettering on light -> medium light shades of grey might have more of a universal appeal across the board, but I would agree--it would be very nice if the lettering and the background were themeable perhaps with presets so we could have different menu colors in different places.

During one EA a few updates ago we actually had the ability to use custom colors for the DX/VST/VST3 designations in the synth menus.  They were later hard-coded.  As much as I would like more customizability for UI colors like these, I am not sure it will happen.

A happy compromise to complete customizability might be  user preset/slots for sets of menu preferences but I am thinking changing colors via the theme editor would require fewer changes to the code. (Just a guess.)   

Edited August 28, 2021 by User 905133

[Starship Krupa]

I take it as a good sign that the devs were able to change the dialog colors so quickly. That bodes well for later customizability via whatever method.

The advantage that theming has over user preferences is that publicly-available themes are somewhat "curated," and there's also the matter of theming being a discipline unto itself, so it's harder for the average not-somewhere-on-the-spectrum Cakewalk user to get themselves into trouble by making half their text illegible.

[John Nelson]

On 8/28/2021 at 7:12 AM, Matthew White said:

As I prefer dark themes I liked this change a lot, I was rather hoping it would stay and also be extended to the Instrument menus but that's just my own personal preference though ideally I think these should be themeable. We can but hope! ?

Matthew, your M-Silk theme matches up really well with the new Export menu IMHO.

[Matthew White]

12 hours ago, John Nelson said:

Matthew, your M-Silk theme matches up really well with the new Export menu IMHO.

Yep, the Export Menu isn't bad but I was referring to the FX Plugin menus that had changed to a dark background very briefly in the first of the latest EA updates but has since been changed back to white in the second latest EA update as it was confirmed a bug, was the best bug I've ever seen and the only bug I didn't want fixed lol.

[John Nelson]

Correction, it was the M-Spec theme that matches with the Export dialog box nicely (not Silk).