My question is, which VST would you acquire, seeing as they are all the same on the DSP side?
The Cheapest.
More likely than not those people who want more skins won't be any more happy with the new offerings. Maybe better a skin developer kit? Exactly what are you talking about in new & improved skins? Just colour schemes? that's very few parameters that Acoustica would need to open up....or are you talking about moving buttons around? That would take some major reprogramming of the GUI.
Either way I'll probably use the skins as much as I do in my other software that offers them: Not at all. Been there done that. Got bored with it.
more or less I was referring to the ability to add 3rd-party custom skins.
as for the VST example, let's say that price wasn't an issue, all three are available for the same price (freeware, donationware, we're-going-to-buy-you-out-of-house-and-home-ware, whatever you want to imagine the price to be).
If there's no difference in price or functionality, eventually the visual aesthetics come into play, be it for purchasing hardware or software.
Sure, if you don't want to use skins, that's fine. You don't have to use them. However, some people (myself included) would like an added ease of customizability when it comes to the visual appearance of Mixcraft 6 (and/or 5) as it currently stands. It's a real pain in the butt to have to back up the entire mixres folder anytime I want to modify the current MX6 skin.
I feel like I should also note that mixcraft 6 is practically ready for multiple skins as it stands - check out the "mixskin.ini" file in the mixcraft program folder. You'll notice within the first few lines (second line, actually) the .ini file mentions the ability to "use another skin". My only guess as to why this is here is that the acoustica mixcraft team was being future-ready, in case someone is compiling a new mixcraft skin .ini file but they don't have all of the necessary images for said new skin, they can call upon an image found within another skin. Point being, it's practically there, all they have to do is put it in the settings menu.
Whilst I generally agree that most users probably would have a dabble for a few minutes and then get fed up with skins I do have a need for them.
I work with a wide variety of groups with differing disabilities this includes people with varying levels of sight loss and also people with dyslexia. Often the sight loss issues can be addressed with magnification software (although this is not always a great solution as the screen can get very confusing when zoomed in). The issue regarding dyslexia is slightly more interesting. often people with dyslexia find some combinations of colours more or less confusing - the ability to change colour schemes can make a world of difference.
I realise that this is a fairly small user base that would benefit from this - but the benefits to those users is potentially huge.
I say if it isn't too difficult then please implement skins.
I looked in the Mixcraft 7 Files and I saw picture (.png or .something) of the buttons (like the play,pause,rwd,ff,keyboard keys) in the Mixcraft 7 folder. Can I have permission to change it
Gadget Studios wrote:I looked in the Mixcraft 7 Files and I saw picture (.png or .something) of the buttons (like the play,pause,rwd,ff,keyboard keys) in the Mixcraft 7 folder. Can I have permission to change it
Hi,
Permission to change it on your own computer? Go ahead. We can't guarantee Mixcraft will work properly if you start tweaking things like that, but some people do it.
Chibear wants nice skin
Trev wants some hair
All reasonable requests of course but for me some teeth would be nice then I don't have to suck soup through a straw.
GUI.
For regular Mixcrafters the GUI is probably not an issue but for a new customer it could make a difference, so having a choice could be a deal maker. There's more to that breakfast cereal box than meets the eye! Its a fact that if you are a carpenter (for instance) all your nice shiny tools will get pinched before the not so shiny ones - and that statement comes from experience!
mick wrote:Chibear wants nice skin
Trev wants some hair
All reasonable requests of course but for me some teeth would be nice then I don't have to suck soup through a straw.
GUI.
For regular Mixcrafters the GUI is probably not an issue but for a new customer it could make a difference, so having a choice could be a deal maker. There's more to that breakfast cereal box than meets the eye! Its a fact that if you are a carpenter (for instance) all your nice shiny tools will get pinched before the not so shiny ones - and that statement comes from experience!
I think that "skins" should not even be on any priority list of things to change in Mixcraft. Yes, maybe skins should be something to consider but only after ALL OTHER functional things are added, implemented and/or fixed.
Cheers
Pierre
Hello Acoustica, if you do decide on skins, don't forget the indispensable nag screen that will remind everyone to change from the Spring to Summer themes. Perhaps a Rachmaninovish motif for Fall? -h
In all seriousness, (if thats possible )
As previously suggested, I'd like to see a modest change to improve the viz of the cursor and the grid lines.
Otherwise on to far more important things.
I know it's a long time; but as a colourblind user, I find the default themes a little hard to use - red and green are very similar colours to me; so I find it difficult to tell if a track is "armed" at a glance - I've changed the icons using Photoshop in the mixrez folder (saving copies first!) for the rec0/3 and rec-armed images; I used "blue" to mean off and "yellow" to mean on - not very aesthetic, but I can tell the difference now. It's a bit fiddly and, obviously, if there was a "colourblind friendly" theme, that would be ideal.
I find it great to have alternative colour schemes. I use different themes to compensate for ambient light in my work area. In the daytime I need something bright and at night I turn the lights down low. Different themes makes it easy.
A theme editor was a repeat request for my old DAW. Once we got it I never used it. Doing a DAW theme is tedious and time consuming, even more so if you don't have a bit of the artist in you. I'd be quite happy if Mixcraft just gave us a few more pre-made display options.
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