MuTools

pljones · Post by **pljones** » Sat May 09, 2015 4:55 pm

Hi,

Over in another topic, a user is asking how to make MuLab more usable by adjusting the colours of the UI to make it more accessible. I just took a look and, whilst several of the elements can be tweaked, it seems a bit hit and miss: you can, for example, change a button's background colour but not its foreground colour, change a menu background and foreground but not (as far as I could tell) change rack colours.

Is there any other way to change the colours than the built-in editor?

Thanks,

-- Peter

MuTools · Post by **MuTools** » Mon May 11, 2015 7:03 am

pljones wrote:I just took a look and, whilst several of the elements can be tweaked, it seems a bit hit and miss: you can, for example, change a button's background colour but not its foreground colour

In the next version all 4 button colors (on+off back+fore) are editable.

but not (as far as I could tell) change rack colours.

Rack colors are not part of the skin, but part of the project. Right-click rack -> Choose Color. The track color is the same as its target rack/module color. Textcolor always is white for now.

Is there any other way to change the colours than the built-in editor?

No. Well, except for colors that are on project/object level, in that case right-click object -> Choose Color.

Grizzellda · Post by **Grizzellda** » Mon May 11, 2015 10:24 am

mutools wrote: Rack colors are not part of the skin, but part of the project. Right-click rack -> Choose Color. The track color is the same as its target rack/module color. Textcolor always is white for now.

Jo, here's a quick question:

In the colours preferences, there is a choice to colour the focused rack, so I went with red. However, the selected rack only turns red if it still has it's default colour of dark grey. As soon as that rack is assigned a new colour, it no longer turns red! Why? I feel it should turn red any time I select it, regardless of what colour it is, because it has the focus!

Can you make this an option?

By the way, recently purchased a license, thank you for the fabulous value! Really appreciate Mulab & the Mux. And that piano roll! Just beautiful, man.

MuTools · Post by **MuTools** » Mon May 11, 2015 2:23 pm

Grizzellda wrote:In the colours preferences, there is a choice to colour the focused rack, so I went with red. However, the selected rack only turns red if it still has it's default colour of dark grey. As soon as that rack is assigned a new colour, it no longer turns red! Why?

Because you assigned it a color. The "Default Focused Rack Color" is only used when you did not choose a rack color yourself, hence the term "Default". Based on what you write i think you should just color the racks themselves and ignore that global default color preference.

By the way, recently purchased a license, thank you for the fabulous value! Really appreciate Mulab & the Mux. And that piano roll! Just beautiful, man.

Thx!

pljones · Post by **pljones** » Mon May 11, 2015 5:57 pm

Would it be possible to have instead of "default focused rack colour" some colour adjustment to apply on focus? That way the user could choose the degree by which focus made a rack "stand out". Some kind of "contrast factor"?

MuTools · Post by **MuTools** » Mon May 11, 2015 6:03 pm

It already does.

pljones · Post by **pljones** » Mon May 11, 2015 6:03 pm

Sorry, I was editing my post. Did you see the new version?

MuTools · Post by **MuTools** » Mon May 11, 2015 6:05 pm

See the "Unfocused Track + Rack Coloring" preference.

pljones · Post by **pljones** » Mon May 11, 2015 6:09 pm

Ah, right - yes. Hm. At some point -- and way down the wishlist!

-- having all the skinning options in one place would be nice

Colouring in two places plus UI settings mixed in with all the other preferences does make it tricky to spot everything.

MuTools · Post by **MuTools** » Mon May 11, 2015 6:16 pm

It's just that the coloring itself and the "textual" preferences are separated for easy editing. Both the preferences and the color preferences are preferences.

MuTools · Post by **MuTools** » Mon May 11, 2015 6:18 pm

Even if they would be at "one place" you still have to scroll thru (the docs = description of) all preferences to know which preferences exist. Unavoidable i think.

pljones · Post by **pljones** » Mon May 11, 2015 6:22 pm

That's due to the "name = value" approach, though. If the approach were more activity based - i.e. click the thing you want to change, see the options for the thing, adjust, save - it could be clearer. Many UI editing tools work that way (even the better software development IDEs will have a "skin" editor that shows you the things you can change and what you can change and what effect that would have; lots of options, yes, but all visually clear as to what they apply to and when).

pljones · Post by **pljones** » Mon May 11, 2015 6:42 pm

Apologies for the large images.

Here's the Eclipse IDE editor for Java development. You see all the options -- many, many -- are there but only the ones contextually correct and the changes made are visually represented "live" in the preview. It makes it very easy to understand what you're changing. There are limitations, even here, that I dislike. Some "global settings" are elsewhere.

Firefox is a lot simpler. And manages to get it wrong. They mix up "what is displayed" with "how to display it" under "Content" settings. "Content" must mean something to someone, I guess. A heading "Fonts and Colours" simply has a font and size, plus two buttons taking you off elsewhere to other places to do more settings, one called "Advanced" (presumably intended to be linked to "Fonts" by the vague virtue of being on the same line) and "Colours". None of these show the effect that the changes will have or where the settings are used. You have to change the settings, save, exit, look, go back, change... etc. And it's so "simple" yet made so much harder...

MuTools · Post by **MuTools** » Mon May 11, 2015 7:06 pm

Grizzellda · Post by **Grizzellda** » Tue May 12, 2015 11:29 pm

mutools wrote: Because you assigned it a color. The "Default Focused Rack Color" is only used when you did not choose a rack color yourself, hence the term "Default". Based on what you write i think you should just color the racks themselves and ignore that global default color preference.

Understood. The way it's designed the Default Focused Rack Colour only works with a grey mixing desk - provided you want to keep all the racks grey.

What I think would be cool is if it would work with a multi coloured mixing desk. Say I had lots of racks coloured with several different shades of several different colours, then selecting any rack would make it turn bright red. Or any colour I choose in preferences. One global colour for "selected rack", regardless the assigned colour. Could this be an option?

Just wondering, but it's very good as is!

MuTools

KVR Audio

Editing main UI colours seems limited