beta: I don’t see why there would be a problem with this faders and using a control surface.
muzicman(): there is no handle, because there is no special target area. You can click and drag the fader on the whole area. This larger target means you have to aim less precisely, hence the fader can be operated faster.
Another graphic with knobs would also require other code to handle the different behaviour. This will not happen.
like I said, it’s a minor issue…
thorwil: the problem is that the moving faders you see on screen are not a good representation, for my eyes and my brain, of what is visually/tactilely happening on the control surface…
And because there I dont use the mouse, the functional need of this (beautiful) “level-indicator” design is no more an issue.
I was only trying to understand if this control-surface (with faders!) / fadersonscreen-design “visual fight” is a thing that annoys just me…
Anyway, I’ll try to make a patch for this option,
and if you think that its useful I’ll post…
or should I join the developer area?
Thanks.
[Great product, Ardour.]
beta: you have to ask Paul Davis if he would accept such a patch. Best come into #ardour on irc-freenode.net, he’s there as “las” or “ardour”.
I did not say anyone needs permission to make a patch for Ardour. But it’s no fun to maintain a patch and if you want something to get into the official line, you have to ask Paul. I figured one might want to consider this before starting to write something.
breakerfall: by far not everyone has a control surface. Making sliders harder to hit because of some “general rules” is just silly. I noticed people tend to either mention conventions or play them down depending on their agenda of the day.
porl: do you mean sliders as on http://www.musicianslife.de/bilder/logic8/Logic-Abbildung6b.jpg?
With those, I wouldn’t know if you can click and drag anywhere, if clicking the handle allows numerical entry and whether the handle can be dragged or not. Wouldn’t take much time hands on to find out, though.
I went through several design iterations until I had something the core team accepted. People who want an alternative should just create one, not blather on and on.
Thorwil’s faders are great to use with a mouse; I can’t comment on their functionality with a control surface. Is the issue one of quickly seeing the current setting? Would having a coloured strip or greater contrast between the lighter and darker sections help?
The faders as they are don’t require the user to re-learn anything; they are still faders. You also can’t make anything better if you stick to conventions; I agree that conventions are useful, but Pro Tools et al were designed to help ease the transition from tape to DAWs. We are probably past that point now.
I like Logic’s faders too, but I don’t want Ardour to look or feel like Logic. The current faders make a visual impression as well as being very functional, and I like that.
those were the faders i mean. don’t get me wrong though, i have no issue using the current faders whatsoever. my original questions for this thread were answered long ago and i don’t think it necessary to change them. i do however believe that ardour does look a little dated compared to some of the other programs out there (i especially like the clean look of logic, but that is probably a familiarity thing), but it has been getting better of late. i think if ardour can continue to be improved visually it will eventually pay off with luring more users over (although i know that that is a two edged sword also).
actually, as a side note, is there any way to change the colours in the faders or are they hard coded? i’m at work at the moment so i can’t check.
porl
porl: the faders are based on pixel images. I think nostar once wanted to generate the graphics, as they are rather simple, this way allowing to change the colours on the fly. I don’t know if he actually got around to that.
porl:
in source tarball there are 2 files:
./gtk2_ardour/icons/fader_belt.png [mixer window]
and
./gtk2_ardour/icons/fader_belt_h.png [editor window].
If you [backup first…] modify these 2 files changing colors with gimp
or another program, and then recompile ardour,
[maybe using scons --implicit-deps-unchanged to speed-up]
you’ll have the faders with new colors.
thanks. i know that i can change pretty much anything if i delve into the source (i played with the fader colours before they made them customisable), i was just curious to see if they were able to be easily changed to work with customised themes without making someone compile a custom version.
thanks guys
porl
I’m a total idiot.
Spent hours digging in code, when its enough to change 2 pngs.
[and was also wrong… no need to recompile for changing faders-design]
Here are my controlsurface-friendly vertical faders:
Here is the fader “source” of the 2 above imgs:
put this image in /usr/local/share/ardour2/icons/fader_belt.png [no need to recompile!]
I’ll make another horizontal one, and maybe a patch for changing faders-design whithout restarting ardour.
Very nice beta! I just (finally!) added these, and they look very nice!
Obviously, the original point that thorwil was making in regards to functionality still stand. These custom fader designs don’t visually highlight the fact that you can control the fader by clicking anywhere on it’s area. It wasn’t only the visual design that bothered me, I suppose it was also the functionality. I think the old version of ardour allowed you to click on a spot and the fader would jump to that point. I guess the new functionality allows for more accuracy when changing the values?
Anyway, I think it wouldn’t be a bad idea to think of another way of designing the fader so that it still visually highlights said functionality, but also appeals to those of us who aren’t keen on the current design.
I wouldn’t mind taking a bash at it… what do some of you think about the idea of representing the fader like a pitch-wheel found on some synthesizers. The ardour fader acts similar to such wheels, as you can move them by holding or touching any point on them and they will only move so far. Maybe, graphically, the ardour fader could be represented this way? I’d have to attempt it, but I feel it won’t be as easy as simply changing the images (the horizontal lines going across a vertical fader won’t always appear evenly apart from above, if the fader was a wheel!)
breakerfall: “I guess the new functionality allows for more accuracy when changing the values?”
The main assumption is that tweaking happens more often than setting coarse values. So indeed, fine adjustments are made easier. But there’s jump-to-cursor via middle-click.
If you are using a control surface the software faders have no functionality
If all you are looking for are faders that mirror the look of the faders on your control surface (which I admit would be pretty cool) then you are only accounting for a single control surface out of hundreds of designs. It would be gnarly to have fader-style switchers with hundreds of user submitted .pngs but how much work would that be? and how would that be integrated into the current design?
![put this image in /usr/local/share/ardour2/icons/fader_belt.png [no need to recompile!]](http://img509.imageshack.us/img509/5082/fadernew1jz6.png){kind=link}