Gui Cosmetics: Borders Around Editor And Sequencer

Ideas & suggestions
1

I noticed a small change in the GUI: the borders around the pattern editor and the pattern sequencer are wider and brighter. I don’t like this change because it makes it harder to see if edit mode is enabled, to me at least - but then, I’m a bit colorblind, so it could be that. I’ve tried different skins, and it is true for most of them, and for all the ones I like. The wider borders also leave slightly less space for the editors. And I think the old look is just cleaner, though I realize it’s hard to compare them because of the new and changed GUI elements.

This is 2.7:

And this is 2.8b1:

And here’s a mockup I made. I think it doesn’t look as good as the old look, but it’s already a bit cleaner and clearer. The border that indicates that edit mode is enabled stands out more:

2

That caught my eye as well right from the beginning. It’s not really that big of an issue but I do very much prefer the old look.

3

Is it currently possible to control the brightness of the border when edit-mode is on? That way you can determine this yourself.

Maybe if the record button in the top left would also be red opposite to the same color as all the other transport button, it also be more clear when editmode is enabled?

4

For new users it’ll be incredibly useful I believe.

5

sry.
i played that “whats the difference”- game on the last two pics. cant see any changes.
is it just the color?! than i want to remind you, that everyone has slightly different color- settings on their lcd/plasma/crt[rip]'s.
software- (profiles,…etc.) and hardware- (dynamic contrast, …etc.) based.

EDIT: hahaha, im so bad at such games sometimes… i found it. what a nitpick! hehe

6

And for us colorblind people! (about 12% of men)

@Jonas: You can’t change the color, to my knowledge. It would certainly help, though.

@engine: I probably see less contrast between the border and the red rectangle than you, so the difference between the last two pictures may be more noticeable for me. It has happened a few times already that I didn’t notice that edit mode was on. This was never a problem with previous versions.

7

Took me a little while to see the difference, is the only one that the bit between the red Record Enabled border and the Focus corner indicators has changed from grey to black or is there more to it? I do think yours is slightly easy to see though…

Seen more comments that it is more obvious in this release than previous mind.

8

I kind of don’t understand why the border was made thicker in the first place, maybe for GUI consistency reasons?

9

I prefer the borders of 2.8 – but I think it would be a very good idea to have some colour themes for the various colourblindnesses (is this even the right word? sry if not) packaged with renoise.

Maybe some people already created such themes for themselves and could share? I know there are tools for webdesign to simulate colourblindnesses, but probably it’s way easier to have themes created by people who can see the outcome “in realtime” while tweaking the colours.

10

i prefer 2.8 borders immensely. i notice edit_mode=on/off easier now. thanks for listening to the endusers, renoise devs!

11

I prefer 2.8 borders too

12

Alright, so I guess it is a matter of personal preference. And I must say that in the evening, when there is less light, I find it easier to see.

Still, it would help if I could alter the color of the indicator to something that stands out more.

13

Which indicator? The Focus indicator follows the colour of the Selection Back in the Themes (same as you Sequencer Patterns and some selected buttons, such as tab in Prefs.) Haven’t found anything that seems to relate to Edit Mode indication border…

Constantly slightly tweaking my theme and currently have it as this (quite ugly in parts and still very much a work in progress):

14

Heh, I find that really difficult to see. I’m talking about the red box around the pattern editor.

I like the red buttons, but it would be really great if only the record button were red so as to distinguish it from the other buttons, as Jonas suggested.

Anyway, I tweaked the default theme a bit and I came up an acceptable color scheme (I made main_back a bit darker), so it’s okay now.

15

The red box I can’t change.

Keeping the Focus red and I found it a bit hard to see when it was in the Pattern Editor. Shame as I quite liked it red.

Buttons colour has modulated up and down a few times and don’t think settled yet…

Not sure on the camo Texture either but only did that earlier to see what I think.

16

This has been requested a number of times. Configuring the edit_mode on/off bracket indicator colours to something which is easier to notice would be swell, of course, but to be honest, I’m surprised the brackets got altered so that they are more noticeable in the first place :)

Anything this-related would be a bonus, more configurability, color-control, thicker / thinner - and the very clever “make record button “record_editmode_colour” when on” which i think is swell too.

You know, old Analogic/AXS had a swell method of recording (well, I believe I remember them using the capslock to record stuff to a wavexxxx.wav, but enough about that), since AXS was a fullscreen software, the actual corners switched from black to white when recording mode was on.
i.e. the interface stayed completely the same but the “just a tad of black” left on each corners switched to white. i guess there’s an actual term for that but i don’t know it.
it was useful anyway:)