Blue tinted instrument track icon? (SOLVED)

[Billy86]

What does it indicate when the icon on an instrument track in track view is tinted blue? Some are, some aren’t. Indicates a frozen track maybe? Can’t find anything on it doing a search. Thanks. 

Edited September 20, 2021 by Billy86

[reginaldStjohn]

Post a picture so we can see what your are talking about.

[user 905133]

I don't know the answer, but I think I see.  Sometimes when my cursor is pointing to the icon between the track number and the track name (such as an instrument or a midi icon), a sky blue border frames the icon and the white part of the image has a faint powder blue tint. 

You can't see it from the screen grab, but the icon for track 7 has the arrow / cursor pointing at it.

To clarify, if I point the cursor at the track 6 icon, it doesn't turn blue with the border. 

More info with my example: track 7 was pointed to a soft synth; track 6 wasn't.  Once I pointed the output of track 6 to a soft synth, it also had the blue border / tint when I pointed at it.

Even more info: after switching the output to a hardware midi port (as opposed to a soft synth), pointing to the icon doesn't change the coloration.

Again, I don't know what the UI is telling us; just playing with it to see what happens. Not even 100% sure this is what Billy86 is referencing.

I am sure someone knows the answer and might even have a link handy that tells us. 

Yet even more info (maybe): The reference guide refers to a setting related to track icon transparency:

Quote

IconTopLeftPixelTransparent=<0 or 1>                               Boolean                                         1        

By default, track icons support transparency. The top left pixel in the BMP determines the transparent color. If you prefer to not have transparent icons, set the variable value to 0. Note: When transparency is enabled, the global color entry (Edit > Preferences > Customization - Colors) called “Track View Icons Background” determines the background color (“Console Strips Icons background” does the same for the Console view and Track Inspector).

If the blue border + tint is indeed related to the transparency setting (on/off) for the track icon and you don't like it changing on you without an explanation of the reason it does that, maybe you can try turning it off?  Just guessing here.  I never noticed this feature before (the border/tint).

Edited September 16, 2021 by User 905133
to add an image of what I think Billy86 mean (not 100% sure, though.

[bitflipper]

I've always assumed it was just to highlight the icon that your mouse cursor is over. Just like the buttons change color when you hover over them, but you can't do that with an image, so you draw a border around it instead.

[Billy86]

22 hours ago, reginaldStjohn said:

Post a picture so we can see what your are talking about.

[Colin Nicholls]

@Billy86, those are denoted "Track Header Icon Thawed" in the Theme Editor. I guess this means they were at one point frozen synth tracks but have been un-frozen.

I'll be honest and say that I've never understood exactly when and why these track header icons appear, given that an unthawed track should look just like a pre-frozen track. Certainly when I do a simple test, my frozen tracks have blue header icons, but then when I un-freeze them, they revert to normal white, not the "blue with orange background".

"Thawed" doesn't even show up in the reference manual that I can find.

Maybe someone else knows the difference.

 

Edited September 17, 2021 by Colin Nicholls

[Billy86]

8 minutes ago, Colin Nicholls said:

@Billy86, those are denoted "Track Header Icon Thawed" in the Theme Editor. I guess this means they were at one point frozen synth tracks but have been un-frozen.

I'll be honest and say that I've never understood exactly when and why these track header icons appear, given that an unthawed track should look just like a pre-frozen track. Certainly when I do a simple test, my frozen tracks have blue header icons, but then when I un-freeze them, they revert to normal white, not the "blue with orange background".

"Thawed" doesn't even show up in the reference manual that I can find.

Maybe someone else knows the difference.

 

This is the part in the first Star Wars movie where the Princess Leia hologram projected from R2D2 beseeches, "Help us, Obi Wan, you're the only one who..."

[sjoens]

 = Normal & Unfrozen Synth (bounced audio is discarded)

 = Frozen Synth (Audio from a soft synth is bounced and placed on the synth’s track)

 = Quick Unfrozen Synth (right click freeze button & select) (Bounced audio is retained, and toggling between Quick Freeze and Quick Unfreeze should be instantaneous) IOW, no processing time needed.

https://www.cakewalk.com/Documentation?product=Cakewalk&language=3&help=Mixing.23.html

Edited September 20, 2021 by sjoens

[Starship Krupa]

On 9/16/2021 at 11:44 AM, User 905133 said:

Again, I don't know what the UI is telling us; just playing with it to see what happens.

The logic of this little blue outline appearing when you hover a MIDI or Synth Icon: it appears when you hover your cursor over a track icon that when clicked, opens a synth UI. This can be one of three things: as you pointed out, a MIDI track whose output is pointing at a soft synth, a soft synth track, and a simple instrument track.

@Colin Nicholls describes it on p. 49 of The Young Lady's Illustrated Primer to Creating Custom Cakewalk Themes. It looks like its color may have once been controlled by the Theme Editor color choice Track view / Track Pane / Open Synth Properties but isn't anymore: "Even when we edit the element to be bright pink, the button highlight on mouse-over remains blue."

(because everyone was dying to know, this blue outline doesn't appear in the Piano Roll or Staff View track panes, only Track View)

On 9/16/2021 at 4:36 PM, bitflipper said:

I've always assumed it was just to highlight the icon that your mouse cursor is over. Just like the buttons change color when you hover over them, but you can't do that with an image, so you draw a border around it instead.

It's so subtle I never even noticed it until I read this topic.

What Cakewalk usually does to make a button "change color" is replace one button image with another button image. When you hover the buttons in Control Bar modules, that's what it's doing. Each button image usually has 5 or so cells (or "imprints") and depending on the control's state, it displays the correct cell...most of the time.

There are places where Cakewalk changes an element's appearance by altering hue, luminance and saturation (muted clips, selected data, header and strip colors, backgrounds, etc.), but for button-y things, even if it's just a plain round orange disk that turns green, they usually do it by swapping images.

[user 905133]

@Starship Krupa Thanks for your detailed explanation and additional details.  I didn't have time to explore the blue border / blue tint issue further (way too  much on the to-do list and way too little time); so, thanks for saving me time that I don't have!

I think that for anyone getting into tweaking or creating themes, your explanations of what goes on to make the icons change (the "under the hood" stuff) complement the theming guide!! 

Clearly (at least to me), @Billy86's blue tinted instrument icon issue is different than the hover issue I mentioned.  Thanks for the clarifying image showing multiple blue tinted icons.  Thanks also @Colin Nicholls and @sjoens for identifying and pointing to the details about the color changes related to frozen track icons.

Edited September 20, 2021 by User 905133
edited reply (shortened it)

[Colin Nicholls]

13 hours ago, sjoens said:

Quick Unfrozen Synth (right click freeze button & select) (Bounced audio is retained, and toggling between Quick Freeze and Quick Unfreeze should be instantaneous) IOW, no processing time needed.

"Today I learned..."

[Billy86]

19 hours ago, sjoens said:

 = Normal & Unfrozen Synth (bounced audio is discarded)

 = Frozen Synth (Audio from a soft synth is bounced and placed on the synth’s track)

 = Quick Unfrozen Synth (right click freeze button & select) (Bounced audio is retained, and toggling between Quick Freeze and Quick Unfreeze should be instantaneous) IOW, no processing time needed.

https://www.cakewalk.com/Documentation?product=Cakewalk&language=3&help=Mixing.23.html

Thanks so much!  Mystery solved. Are you seeing those icons on that Documentation page? My images indicate a broken link, so I'm not seeing those.