Greets, thought I’d share a point of view regarding the current default-colortheme. First of all I love the interface of Renoise and I’ve got no complaints with it, but I fear the current default-theme doesn’t instantly provide the best possible first-impression of Renoise it really should.
The vibe you get when first checking out a piece of software is vital in spreading a positive Renoise-image around and currently it still looks a little bit toyish, after all most people propably stick with the default colors while checking out what the software feels like. Of course colors are a matter of opinion but it could all use a bit of toning down, get the colors to blend better with each other, make the bright pattern font colors a little less in-your-face etc.
Of course most would still end up using their preferred neon-eyekillers, but I bet the first whoa-effect of Renoise would be even stronger with some carefully selected colors, which would in turn be great for inspiring people to explore deeper beyond the first-impression thus finding the true superpower of Renoise.
After a friend of mine upgraded to Cubase 4, and I registered Renoise a short while after, I realized that for me, Renoises design, colors and layout seems more professional (oh noes, there’s that word again) and more importantly: more pleasant than Both Cubase and Reason (which he also uses). We had an afternoon of “show me yours/show you mine” - he got to fiddle a bit with Renoise, I got to fiddle with his Sylenth1. His reaction was that Renoise had a very professional feel and look to it, but with too many letters and numbers.
Yes, the pattern can look a bit glaring, but I need to see that, and I doubt it’s possible to make it less texty.
I’m using the default theme, and none of the themes offered from people here make me jump around in joy. This may be because quite a lot of them are brightly colored, which is fun, but tiresome.
Ah, just wanted to write about how nice this thing is. If the colours were even better, I wouldn’t mind, I just can’t imagine what could make it better. Surprise me.
I have to agree with Saine on this one. I think a more subtle theme would be better.
People have a lot of prejudice against trackers, thinking that trackers are 90’s leftover-toys compared to most other software, which of course couldn’t be further from the truth. I think layout and colors play a large role in it.
Actually I think that Saine’s theme is pretty nice (been using it for two years now, most of the others almost make my eyes bleed), but like Johann said, maybe something bit similar to the website could work.
As Bantai said: We already have spend a lot of time on this.
The biggest problem here is how the “default” looks an all the different monitors and color setups. Macs have different default color sync schemes than windows for example. A LCD looks different than a monitor. The current theme is a compromise of this, aka looks OK and usable on most monitors that I could test it on.
Also we tried to took care about that the theme is usable in first place, that stuff like the keyboard focus, selection and so on are always well presented. In Saines theme you can hardly distinguish if the Disk Browser is focussed or not for example.
At the end its a matter of taste, thats why you can use your own themes if you want.
I agree with the “text” bloating problem though. We should get rid of text where possible and hide things where possible, but this is not always that easy. Try to find an icon for the “Track DSP” button for example that everyone recognizes as this at the very first look, without knowing what happens when you press on it.
I dont agree with the website look. Websites are mainly made to preset text, so they should get their own layout and colors that do this job.
If you have constructive ideas for a new default theme though, let us know please.
Yeah my theme is indeed better suited for a dark working enviroment heheh, the default one should be a little more visible and compatible with different monitors. Anyway, I quickly tried photoshopping something to emphasize what I meant…
This being just a quick test of course, but I think some of the colors in the current default theme really jump out too much (all the nasty greens and oranges together etc) until you’ve gotten used to them with time -atm the first impression isn’t what it could be, having heard quite a bit of similar feedback from other people aswell. Still, I’m no designer myself, just sharing my opinion here, but even small changes could make all the difference here…?
I think the default theme is good. Maybe there’s a theme that’s better, but I don’t even bother checking.
I went through the ones in the Renoise folder and eventually got back to the default one.
As far as the general GUI (buttons, layout), I think there’s some room for improvement.
favorites during the day are the “default broken” ones especially the default broken 2 ! (though it has a little error that makes it hard to see what pattern you got selected) default broken 2 could easy be the default one.
favorite night theme is “substructive” (thats also works for me during the day) again, it could be a candidate for a default theme.
during install users could be asked if they like a “techno” or “organic” look.
or even have a little preview of the theme’s. though imo some submitted theme’s are not that good.
perhaps there could be a voting round for the top 10/20 of submitted theme’s and include only those in the install.
personally i don’t like the current default theme because it uses white typo in the dark pattern background.
there should be a separate section on the site where all theme’s are listed (with previews doh )
-1 for the install option. It may confuse newbies more than anything. Besides the tutorials are made with the default theme and someone might not find it so familiar if his theme is different.
Switching themes inside Renoise is very easy, too.
Greetings, I’m a gainfully employed purchaser of this software who uses the default theme.
Your modification is actually worse than how it is now. Also, it is hosted on image shack and grossly pixelated so completely useless as a mechanism for swaying my view.
Opinions are like assholes… you can never have too many.
Exactly, let the people with shitty aesthetics change “ugly” into green fluorescent camouflage with gaudy 3d rendered textures and let them feel good about their “individuality” as fashion is always the best way to express an intellectual endeavor (lol).
Hmm, okay then. As I mentioned, the preview image I posted was just there to give a (clumsy) example on what I was getting at earlier, not a definite guideline on how it should be. Although yes, the pixelated image doesn’t show the difference in the pattern-view very well.
Currently, when opening Renoise for the first time the pattern-view is full of neon-bright dots, not looking too intelligible for at least some of us. With surprisingly small changes it could already get a lot more eye-friendly, keeping in mind Renoise should look inviting for those of us aswell, who aren’t already familiar with the tracker world. Some slight changes and toning down here and there, that’s all I’m saying.
I have always thought that the background dots and lines should have a different color and a different character then the one you use on the actual pattern data.
Especially on high resolutions then even an empty pattern seems just messy and crowded with lots of dots and lines.
We could make a lot more cool themes if a few more details like that had separated settings.
The pattern data would then have a much better contrast to the background, and you could then easier use more dimmed pattern-font color in your themes.
Also to use different characters for the background dots is important, as you could then draw new symbols to have in the background (or remove them) that would not affect the pattern data. (like now you can’t make the “-” different in a font editor, as it is also used as a background character.
I think a few small changes here could make a quite large difference in the pattern editor.
This sounds really nice. I wanted to add that I always liked that every 4 rows was highlighted, marking the beats but, I miss the secondary highlight of every 4 beats, marking a measure. Like Impulse Tracker had it.
It really helps navigate the measures on long patterns where you dont know the line-numbers of the measures by heart.
Sorry for going in the GUI direction again, but I would miss it if the words “track DSP”, and the other buttons near it was changed for a symbol.
Might change my mind if this was done to make room for other buttons we need close at hand, but as there is no widely used symbol meaning “track dsp” or “automation”, we would have to learn what they mean. Back to the themes.
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