Dark Theme in Pro Tools 2020.11

[rampartthemovie]

Originally Posted by wwittman

it seems some people are more concerned with how it "looks" than about how easy it is to USE

well this IS a thread about dark mode, duh. You don't go into a pro tools|control thread and say "eRm sEeMs lIkE mOrE pEoPlE cArE about this android/ios app than Pro Tools and the bugs".

THere's a thread for everything mate, just because a thread posts about a specific topic doesnt mean they have ignored other problems.I'm sure you can find a thread for that too,

[Neale]

Originally Posted by JingleDjango

No. It doesn't have to mean skins at all. See the Colors heading in Ableton Live's preferences panel. And please spare us the condescension. Most of us are professionals as well with our own particular use cases, needs and priorities.

It's cool. I don't know you, you don't know me. But already in this thread, some of the people have complained about the situation, only to find that there are colour and saturation sliders that are completely non-intuitive BUT THEY WORK and can probably solve a bunch of issues for the complainers if they only RTFM.

I think Harrison's Mixbus sounds and works awesome. Looks terrific. Problem is navigating around it, mapping interface controls, etc. So I don't typically use it unless it's a project for which time is either not billable or an issue. Even in dark mode, having used PT since v6.x (maybe 5, I can't remember what came with my MBox), none of it keeps me from functioning as a professional, plus it's not bright on my eyes with my intentionally and completely controllable LIFX dimmable lighting, so I am having a hard time understanding how people have so much to complain about. Maybe it's mostly Windows users and there's an issue there, I don't know.

I think I can be condescending to some people who don't know about the colour and saturation sliders. I found dark mode underwhelming until I started messing with them. If you're going to complain, I hope you've tried everything possible first. Otherwise, I will be condescending because you didn't even ask for help or RTFM, you went straight to complaining.

And unless you want me to list every way you can customize colours, fine. I would hope most would understand that the generalized comment of skins and "whatever other means by which one can control one's GUI" is what it is... a generalization.

I am happy with dark mode. It's not 100% how I want it, but when is art (i.e. "colours" and "shades" and what-have-you) ever 100% satisfactory? If nothing else, there is nothing in this mode (so far!) that keeps me from working as a professional vs "classic" mode that, again, has gone through its own changes through the years.

So... worst dark mode ever? Not for me. Not even close. But there is room for improvement for sure.

[musicman691]

Originally Posted by simonchase

That hack from "rampartthemovie" on page 9 of this thread looks so much better to me - see attached

It's almost impossible to see the MIDI notes in an instrument track when I tried the hack. Went back to the normal dark mode and I modified a couple of lines in the file to change the headers on the mix and edit screens to differentiate them from the other screen elements and also changed a file line to change the color of the floating windows (like plugins, system usage meters, etc.)

[musicman691]

Originally Posted by wwittman

it seems some people are more concerned with how it "looks" than about how easy it is to USE


I still don't see how dark mode makes using PT easier.
quite the opp, in fact

For me dark mode makes working in PT a lot easier on the eyes and if it does that it means I can work with more comfort and I'm less tired at the end of the day. To each their own.

Originally Posted by arche3

Darkmode gang stand up. Lol.

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Pro dark mode here (especially with the changes I've made to the file).

[samtrino]

Do you have to restart PT after modifying the file for the changes to take effect?

Originally Posted by musicman691

It's almost impossible to see the MIDI notes in an instrument track when I tried the hack. Went back to the normal dark mode and I modified a couple of lines in the file to change the headers on the mix and edit screens to differentiate them from the other screen elements and also changed a file line to change the color of the floating windows (like plugins, system usage meters, etc.)

[daeron80]

Originally Posted by NateAlexander

getting the sense that the people who don't like it because they "can't see" things... are, um, older.

You young whippersnappers and your dark mode. Why, when I was your age, dark mode was called Sad Mac. And you didn't want to see that, sonny, I tell ya. Meant your nubus cards weren't seated right. When I was a kid, some Pro Tools systems had farm cards stacked five feet high, and we had to take them out and reseat them one by one. Did it till our fingers bled an inch deep in the expansion chassis. Then we'd have to wait for the blood to dry before we could reboot and continue the session. Things were better in my day...

[GoButtonGuy]

Originally Posted by JingleDjango

Great that some users find the new dark theme comfortable for their use but those of us who don't aren't simply reactionary, or too old to adapt.

+1

Plenty of us old guys adapt well.

I like your suggestion to implement something like what Live has. If I'm not in an app a great deal I don't spend too much time customizing the UI. Where I do is in color schemes and layouts of control surfaces or color coding tracks in the DAW. On the music or audio control tools I hide toolbars or palettes I'm not using but the light mode/dark mode has never really been a thing with me.

I like the dark mode and just left it and I'm usually not a dark mode guy.

[musicman691]

Originally Posted by samtrino

Do you have to restart PT after modifying the file for the changes to take effect?

I never edit the file with PT running. I make my edits, save the file, close the file and then start PT.

[musicman691]

I had a thought while watching some YouTube videos for all you Windows users - you know how some talk about the title bar and being stuck with an awful old color?


Take a look at these lines in the dark mode text file (keep in mind that I'm on a Mac so change any Mac references to whatever is being used in the Windows version). The first is this line which is the floater top bar for things like plugins and so on: cMac window title bar floater what are the first three values in that line? On a Mac they are 5140, 5140, 5140 which gives a grayish line. In my file I changed them to 46147, 15278, 16711 and that gave me a salmon pink line. The next line to look at is cMac window title bar which is for the title bars in the edit screen, etc. On my file it was 5140, 5140, 5140 which again gives a grayish bar. I changed that to 12566, 32609, 11883 which gave me a greenish bar.


Those are the numbers for the colors I came up with. You can change them to whatever you want. Keep in mind that the first number in the line is for red, the next is for green and the third is for blue.


This is just a starting point/tickler and if someone can find an online color calculator/chooser that does 16 bit decimal numbers that will ne an immense help. Three identical numbers will give you anything from white with all numbers 65535 to black with all numbers zeroes. It's a gray scale type of thing.

[arche3]

Used darkmode all day. I easily see everything. The inactive plugs-ins dim enough for me to distinguish against the active. Overall I like it a lot.

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