Sonar Theme Editor Early Access is here!

[Starship Krupa]

I trust our dedicated .STH lords will give it a thorough assessment.

So far the biggest issues I have with it are that there is STILL no way to set the color of beat and measure grid lines 🤬 and that too many of the element colors are tied to other disparate elements. That is, when you change one element, it affects something in a completely different area of the UI, and not necessarily something that you wanted to have match.

 

[sjoens]

Each view should have it's own customization w/o affecting other views.  It became an issue with X series because it was never meant to be user customized.  I was hoping it would be fixed with the all new UI venture. 

 

[Starship Krupa]

1 hour ago, sjoens said:

Each view should have it's own customization w/o affecting other views.  It became an issue with X series because it was never meant to be user customized.  I was hoping it would be fixed with the all new UI venture. 

I agree. It's just not granular enough.

I'd like to see a set of palettes for each of the major views. The categories it has now are actually a good start, it's just that they affect unrelated elements.

Please, folks, hit this as hard as you can, because once it's actually released, any changes will likely break previous custom themes. The devs won't want to do that. I think it will be different from the Theme Editor of old, this one is created by the developers themselves and they'll be using it to create the factory themes.

[Base 57]

Have you guys found a way to change the color of the NOW Time in the Transport Module Display? It seems to be staying the same in all Themes.

[Starship Krupa]

3 minutes ago, Base 57 said:

Have you guys found a way to change the color of the NOW Time in the Transport Module Display? It seems to be staying the same in all Themes.

The Old Dude's Guide To Color Themes says that Surface 2 foreground sets the color of the Now Time cursor line.

Surface 2 is the biggest example of a palette that needs to have its functions split up, IMO. It controls too many disparate elements.

[Base 57]

But what does the Old Dudes Guide say about the Now Time Display? Not the cursor line.

You know,  the numbers in the Transport module part of the Control Bar.

[Starship Krupa]

13 hours ago, Base 57 said:

But what does the Old Dudes Guide say about the Now Time Display? Not the cursor line.

You know,  the numbers in the Transport module part of the Control Bar.

TODG has determined that as of now, there's no known way to change the color of the Transport readout numerals. The only solution is to use a lighter color for the window background, which is set by Overrides/Transport Module/Display/Background. Foreground only sets the color for the smaller ones in the row at the bottom of the window.

[msmcleod]

On 12/13/2025 at 5:14 AM, Base 57 said:

Have you guys found a way to change the color of the NOW Time in the Transport Module Display? It seems to be staying the same in all Themes.

There's a bug that is causing the Now Time display to be showing at the wrong color on displays set to 96dpi (e.g. 100% scaling).

This has been fixed, and will be available for for the main release.

[sjoens]

Question:  Unless the Theme Editor will eventually affect more than just colors, why not simply update the color changer already in Preferences?

If the two reside in tandem, will they affect the same elements, or will one override the other?

[gmp]

The header for this UI Theme web page reads

Post custom UI themes for CbB

Have any new Sonar Themes been posted yet? If so where

This is such great news about the Theme Editor, I've been still using CbB after trying Sonar for a month. Now it says that after 12/31/25, activation will stop. I imagine by then I'll be using Sonar with my edits to the Themes, which I'll upload here and share with others.

[Colin Nicholls]

23 minutes ago, gmp said:

Have any new Sonar Themes been posted yet? If so where

I think once this feature is out of Early Access and released, you'll find a few themes/schemes showing up here. We have been warned about Early Access not being the final version of features, and themes is a likely area where things might change before release. Folks are just being cautious.

[Starship Krupa]

7 hours ago, sjoens said:

why not simply update the color changer already in Preferences?

Because it's complex, clunky and outdated, perhaps?

7 hours ago, sjoens said:

If the two reside in tandem, will they affect the same elements

So far, they haven't. The color choices that you can make in the old custom color are all things that are minor and mostly hidden. Things like what colors you want the automation lines for surround channels. The colors set by the new Theme Editor are front-facing.

[Starship Krupa]

31 minutes ago, gmp said:

Have any new Sonar Themes been posted yet?

No, and there probably won't be any until the feature is actually released. It's likely to change a great deal before then.

[gmp]

22 minutes ago, Starship Krupa said:

No, and there probably won't be any until the feature is actually released. It's likely to change a great deal before then.

I look forward to everyone sharing Themes once they get the release out. It makes sense they're not wanting us to share Themes while they're still fixing things. I'm so relieved the end is in sight for me to stop using CbB and going back to Sonar.

I don't mind paying the $70/yr. I've been using Cakewalk/Sonar/CbB since 1992 with DOS and we used to have to pay yearly.

[sjoens]

15 hours ago, Starship Krupa said:

Because it's complex, clunky and outdated, perhaps?

True, but wouldn't take much to clean it up.  It had multiple categorizes to help narrow down elements, tho many were incomplete.

My dream is to right-click the header of any view for a 'view exclusive' color edit window.

[Starship Krupa]

19 hours ago, gmp said:

It makes sense they're not wanting us to share Themes while they're still fixing things.

There's been no official recommendation that users not share themes, rather I think that having anyone sharing them publicly is unlikely because of the logistics involved. I created more than half a dozen CbB themes, and there's a surprising amount of labor overhead in testing a theme, then setting up a way to share it, then writing a topic on the forum, posting to Reddit, and Facebook. After the first revision gets out there, updating it is the same chore. People aren't likely to check the theme forum daily just to see if their favorite color scheme has been updated, so you'll wind up with earlier, presumably lesser, versions of your work out in the wild.

All of that inspires a desire to feel secure that the theming system is stable before I put anything out there. I'd like to start as soon as possible, because the Free Tier blocks access to the Color Theme Editor. Free Tier folks have no way to create/edit their own, so they'll be dependent on others' efforts. Assuming that Free Tier will still allow you to install custom themes, just not edit them. I hope it doesn't also block the ability to use custom color themes.

[gmp]

I'm still on Free Tier and once I feel confident that the Theme Editor works at least as well as the Platinum one, then I'll pay the $70 for the yearly membership. I hope some users who post Themes will give a screenshot or 2 for us Free Tier guys, that are waiting,  to visualize.

Fortunately, I've been able to continue using CbB even when the supposed deadline was up. Hopefully, they will let us use that until the Theme Editor is solid and useful. It's been so long but it seems to me it was very easy to upload and download Themes in the past from a dedicated website, onedrive, or google drive.

Edited 15 hours ago by gmp

[Colin Nicholls]

36 minutes ago, Starship Krupa said:

Assuming that Free Tier will still allow you to install custom themes, just not edit them. I hope it doesn't also block the ability to use custom color themes.

Appears to work fine. My custom theme remains in place and active when I run Sonar in Logged-out-of-Bandlab. I see all the "crown" icons indicating features not available.

 

[Mark Morgon-Shaw]

All I want is it to look as close to CBB Mercury as possible, the colours in "Mercury Classic" are more muted. 

[HOOK]

1 hour ago, Mark Morgon-Shaw said:

All I want is it to look as close to CBB Mercury as possible, the colours in "Mercury Classic" are more muted. 

Guess what....lol