Buttons for Active/Inactive Inserts and Nicer L-R faders

Community Ideas for Ardour
#1

Hi,

Ardour’s GUI is quite impressive as far as Linux GUI’s go…however there are a couple of small things I think could finish it off a little more completely. What about an indicator button for Inserts (and possibly plugins as well) to indicate and change their state from active to inactive instead of the spindly red text. And those tiny green filaments for panning indicators look like they haven’t been finished yet.

Just a couple of suggestions to “snazz it up” a little since 2.8 with VST support is going to increase downloads so exponentially (:b)

#2

yes and at the same time make all buttons look like a shiny-blue bar of translucent soap. Screen realestate is there to be wasted by UI bling after all. Err, no, actually.

Paul (& your talented not-commerce-driven UI design helpers), you’re stingy with the pixels and we love it. Software without glossy brochures doesn’t need design changes motivated solely by the demands of glossy brochure peddlers.

#3

Come on Seb, don’t be too hard on GMaq :lol:
The aesthetic is one thing, but it’s also about work flow.

I could imagine a track/bus mixer strip a little bit more advanced and simple at the same time. Instead of having plugin names as text with a context menu (right click) popping up for plugin actions, I would think that a quick toggle on/off would be a nice touch, if the plugin name was displayed as a sensitive button : left-click once, turns red (bypassed), left-click once again, turns green (active). A fast double-left-click would make the plugin window pop-up, and a right-click would continue being what it is.

As far as the panning “filaments” are concerned, I mentioned once that a nice touch would be to have a little pop-up number indicating the level of panning of the filament as you drag it, or mouse-over it. I don’t care about the aesthetic of it, I grew used to it :slight_smile:

#4

try middle-clicking on the plugin name, this should switch between bypass mode and normal operation.

#5

great, thanks :slight_smile:

#6

Yo Seb,

Call off the dogs! :wink:

I’m not suggesting Ardour should look like anything but Ardour…no tranlucent buttons…no chrome…no brushed titanium… just some nice murrina darklooks or clearlooks buttons so that the left panel and mixer strips look as nice as the main panel at the top does.

#7

GMaq:

(a) the color change only indicates selected status
(b) an inactive (bypassed) plugin has its named indicated (like this) instead of like this. check it out, you’ll see what i mean.
© there’s no room for an indicator to the side; it could potentially be done with a cell renderer that would render the background behind the plugin name a different color.
(d) you may not have realized that you don’t need to hit the “spindly green lines” to adjust panning. that could be considered a defect, but thicker lines allow less “visual precision” in the already limited real estate. may i be so bold as to recommend a mouse with a mouse wheel? you’ll love it

#8
may i be so bold as to recommend a mouse with a mouse wheel? you’ll love it

:lol: !!

#9

OK,

What’s a wheel mouse?.. I’ve been using sharp sticks and pieces of flint…no wonder I’m having difficulty.

The witty exchanges are fun…however I was never calling the functionality into question just the appearance…I’m shallow that way!