Dark theme in Pro Tools 2020.11

[Carl Lie]

Originally Posted by musicman691

Sussing the hex codes drove me nuts until I figured out how to use the OSX color sync utility set to work with 16 bit to check the colors I wanted. Open that up, set the selector on the lower left to 16 bit and use the three sliders to setup your colors. Then change the numbers in the particular dark mode file line you want to change. You'll actually see four sets of numbers per lien with the fourth being opacity with 65535 being no transparency to whatever layer is below.

Wondering if you feel with your changes that it is as you would want it to be?

C

[musicman691]

Originally Posted by Carl Lie

Wondering if you feel with your changes that it is as you would want it to be?

C

It's not perfect with the changes that's been done. Keep in mind that it's not just the edits I made but also what tmuzik made; I just melded it into one file. Are there changes I'd like to make?


Sure but I can't unless Avid kicks loose with where are the parameters for the, for want of a better word, active cells. Like what are the color numbers (and where are they) for an insert that is active. Another is I'd like to be able to do separate colors for the title bars for the edit and mix screens.


To answer your question: it's not what I want it to be but it makes dark mode easier for me to work in. And that translates to me having an easier time working in PT than in 'classic' mode. AKA less eyestrain at the end of the day.


Almost forgot - one more thing - wish Avid would let us change modes without having to restart PT.

[climber]

I was having problems with Dark Mode on my Raven... the faders were offset to the right no matter the alignment. go figure? there is something going on of course, but I simply can't see the difference. it was also a bit too dark, even after messing with the saturation etc. alignment of the overlay worked on 2 tunes, but not on a third!

so for some reason I started changing the display settings for the Raven. it was set to the the Raven calibration, but I tried several others. I could see the alignment change as you switch from one to the other. some aligned, but looked terrible! I finally found one that looked good color-wise and the alignment snapped into place.

it's worth a try...

happy Thanksgiving

[Emi]

Originally Posted by musicman691

Almost forgot - one more thing - wish Avid would let us change modes without having to restart PT.

That’s a good point. Yesterday I worked on a session late at night and switched to dark mode. If you work in a very very low light it’s ok. But I’ll just stay on classic mode as about all my work I do is at day light

[SixChurchStreet]

I had been using PT 2018 for a long time on sub just because I didn't feel like updating. Decided to update to 2020 just for kicks the other day. Didn't even realize it had dark mode. I'm VERY happy. My old eyes appreciate it very much. I can't take all the brightness.

[Carl Lie]

Originally Posted by musicman691

I

To answer your question: it's not what I want it to be but it makes dark mode easier for me to work in. And that translates to me having an easier time working in PT than in 'classic' mode. AKA less eyestrain at the end of the day.


Almost forgot - one more thing - wish Avid would let us change modes without having to restart PT.

Thanks Jack and Happy Thanksgiving. Amen to the restart. I think they'll listen to what many of us have written about dark mode.

Staying positive.

C

[musicman691]

Ran into a fellow over on Gearslutz's PT forum who was having a visibility problem with the text color when 'suspend all groups' is selected. The default color for that mode is a greyish color. There's a simple fix for that. This is for a Mac:
Change the numbers in the line 'GroupListViewSuspendedText' from 65535,65535,65535,29555 to 65535,0,0,65535 and that will give a bright red text color. It's the same color change I made for the 'inactive' plugins text. I find that red is a good alert color.

[NateAlexander]

Another big find for my Windows friends:

So as I was saying a few posts back, a lot of the awkward look has to do with Avid not calling the right assets in their Windows gui. Luckily, there exists a way to change this at the system level by creating custom .msstyle files— and a fantastic program which signs these custom themes so you can actually use them.

You will need to download UXThemePatcher

At the moment I’ve only found a theme that covers up the horrendously bright white menu bar (see screenshot), so the ugly aero MDI child window border remains until I find one that addresses it, but it’s only a matter of time. (Hell might even try to make one if I can find the time).

[climber]

this reminds me of people doing new color-schemes for Digital Performer a few years ago... there were some pretty nice ones as I seem to remember.

[musicman691]

Originally Posted by climber

this reminds me of people doing new color-schemes for Digital Performer a few years ago... there were some pretty nice ones as I seem to remember.

Remember that well. The main fellow doing the ones that were for sale stopped doing them when DP10 rolled out. ampguimods or something like that IIRC was his website and Andy Selby was his name. Sadly he was never willing to share how he did things nor are any of the posters over on Motunation - they treat it like it's some kind of classified thing. Not us here (or me). I post what I find in the way of changes.


I started in DP at the time Avid started with the subscription business as I was afraid I'd lose a permanent license asset and MOTU was doing a good cut price on crossgrades. My favorite DP theme is None More Black which is pretty close to the stock PT 2020.11 dark mode.