Request: Skin

[lazymonkey44]

I dont think audacity should look like any of the ones i have seen, the look kind of childish to me, i'd like it if audacity kept is basic layout but was sprused up a bit, at the moment i think it look like win98. The mac one look much nicer, but thats only because of the way it is made for macs. if audacity could be themed it would be great! Everyone would have it look they wat they want! But, i think is realy needs a more retail/Professional look.

Hope it happens!

[porl]

i downloaded the source and tried to play with it, but no matter what i try, i can't get any changes to the buttons (i'm using the button graphic as a test) to display in the compiled application. even if i *delete* the button icons, clean the source tree and recompile, they *still* look the same, and it compiles fine, which leads me to believe that maybe the source has a new way of displaying images etc, and there are lots of old files left behind. this makes it really hard to do any work on the interface.

looking further into it, it seems that 'ThemeAsCeeCode.h' is where the buttons are drawn. this file is not human editable. there is mention in 'themability.dox2' that there is supposed to be functions in the preferences to dump out a theme for modification etc, but i can't find it anywhere. --enable-debug doesn't add any extra options in the preferences dialog (as themability.dox2 implies). what am i doing wrong?

porl

[porl]

i can't find the 'theme' preferences dialog. i have compiled latest cvs (19 may 2008) and can't find any reference to themes in the preferences

thanks
porl

[stevethefiddle]

what am i doing wrong?

You are not doing anything wrong. Support for themes was dropped a few versions ago and as far as I'm aware it has not (yet) been brought back. Perhaps in version 1.4?

[porl]

hmm... thats odd. the code looks like it all but supports it. maybe i'll have a look at the current 'theme' file to see how they made that. don't like my chances though, it is essentially a binary dump to a c array, not very user friendly

porl

[SamPL]

I'm eager to start skinning with Audacity too, but I can't find Themes on my beta 1.3.4 either.

Is there somewhere I can download the 1.3.3 version from sourceforge (for win xp)? I'd really appreciate it!

[SamPL]

My apologies--should have known better than to ask without asking Google first... (For those looking for a version that supports themes: Beta 1.3.3 with theme ability can be found here: http://sourceforge.net/project/showfile ... _id=509344)

I think a visually pleasing theme is very important for the next release... but it also must be clean, simple, and have wide appeal. The interface for a tool like Audacity is not the place for intense graphic design (ie, sharp gradients, brushed metal)--it'll alienate users and get too old too quickly.

Below is a version of a theme-in-progress I'm working on based on the free Silk icons (http://www.famfamfam.com/lab/icons/silk/). I think it's a nice, fresh update to the current UI--especially the new tool icons. Thoughts/comments?

- Sam PL

new.png (36.95 KiB) Viewed 2627 times

[porl]

very nice. i like the understated look, not trying to be 'cool' or 'exciting', but looking clean and modern.

i think another important thing though that needs improving (and will take a lot more work) is the canvas that the wave is drawn on. i love the way jokosher uses antialiasing to smooth the waveform view (although i think audacity would still need to show the full waveform, not the 'rectified top half' view of jokosher's).
a screenshot:


i think with something like your new icon/button theme and this kind of visual improvement, audacity will look as good as it can work

porl

[audio_addict]

Well, hello. I personally like the refreshing colors of Jokosher's UI and wave color myself. I tried my shot at meddling with the dull colors of Audacity to reproduce Jokosher's wave track. I would really appreciated if you could please implement your buttons to my ImageCache, SamPL. I really believe this bend would really give Audacity a breath of fresh air.
Thank you.

These are the Jokosher colors in action.

greentracks_audacity.png (54.14 KiB) Viewed 2229 times

Here is the ImageCache file.

ImageCache.png (75.71 KiB) Viewed 2241 times

[SamPL]

Here's the .png for my image theme.

If anyone wants to make further mods, I've also uploaded the original photoshop file and .png in a .zip here: http://drop.io/samplfamfam

famfamv1.png (63.41 KiB) Viewed 2306 times