Ableton Forum

pearsonart.com wrote:Angstrom, please send me the skin above as an attachment. It looks like a nice alternative. Maybe not an end all solution but I like it and could get some use out of it.

I would but it needs a little adjustment, notice that some of the text is 'white on white' !

I am tinkering with a different version right now which is a kind of offshoot, but with a white waveform on a dark background. Slightly more sinister.

when I'm done I'll package them up.

will someone from Ableton please comment in thread as to whether we can share info about the variables. I have a notebook full and I'm sure it'll be usefull to other tinkerers and their comments will be useful to me.

I can't see that editing a bit of hex colour info being the same as examining the source of the exe, but still it's their company info and I'm sure it's covered by the EULA.

I agree on that.

I was a little nervous about posting the first batch but my view is that monolake established a precedent by posting his skins as himself and not under an official ableton release.

I think this falls under "grey" area. My skin mods have been available since October and not a word from the company. I think as long as our intentions are good and no harm or profit comes from it, we're being encouraged to tinker. Call it feedback or promotion if you like.

I also don't expect the company to support compatibility with any of the 3rd party skins that are released - including Robert's.

But then again, I could easily see a few successful variations influencing the built in skins of a future official release and that's a nice thought.

Hi folks,

really.. what a thread

will someone from Ableton please comment in thread as to whether we can share info about the variables.

I'm not a lawyer but I think the EULA is pretty clear on prohibit every kind "reverse engineer, decompile, disassemble, modify,...". So sorry but no.

I also don't expect the company to support compatibility with any of the 3rd party skins that are released - including Robert's.

Absolutely right. As long as we do not provide an official way to create skins we will not and also can not provide support for any 3rd party skins.

But then again, I could easily see a few successful variations influencing the built in skins of a future official release and that's a nice thought.

I would agree

My skin mods have been available since October and not a word from the company. I think as long as our intentions are good and no harm or profit comes from it, we're being encouraged to tinker.

I would agree.
So to provide skins for your own use or for others is one thing we can live with but not to provide guides explaining internals of our software or our formats nor to provide tools to create files of our formats without our authorization.




Beside that we would like to know what are the main problems you have with the existing skins or some of them. There are some in several postings of this thread like:

as the progress marker on clips is the exact same color as the wave, black.

Can I get a custom one with Midnight with a light waveform color?

let us change the waveform colour like Live 4

It's just wrong that only 3 skins out of all those have a visible clip play position marker.

The same variable for the wave background as the selected clip row? weird!

Maybe someone opens a thread in the wishlist forum to collect all these and more issues.


regards,
/Alex

Alex wrote: to provide skins for your own use or for others is one thing we can live with but not to provide guides explaining internals of our software or our formats nor to provide tools to create files of our formats without our authorization.

oops!

well, I guess sqook hasn't exactly assembled his Dev team just yet , so I hope he is still reading this thread!

I think there will be a few disapointed people there Alex, unless you are going to release an authorised skin editor, we are all creative types and like to 'create' and 'customize' our instruments. my philosophy on this is pretty much here http://www.makezine.com/

hopefully you dont mind me and others doing this hex editing by hand?
I guess this just makes it a little harder and therefore cooler huh?8)




and yes, I think the waveform progress marker should be a very different colour from both the wave and the wave background IMHO.

Alex wrote: Maybe someone opens a thread in the wishlist forum to collect all these and more issues.


regards,
/Alex

couldnt you just move this one??

Hey forge,

couldnt you just move this one??

I could but the thread is already this big that it takes hours to get through all.
Maybe we do this tomorrow, after some more replies and some sleep for me

regards,
/Alex

Thanks so much for the clarification. Can't say that any of that is a surprise. Good news as far as I can tell. Tinker, distribute for free to other users but don't publish how it was done. I think most of us can live with that. Really, it's quite generous.

As an artist, I would encourage the program designers to simplify the color palette. I'm a strong advocate of white/offwhite & black with a single tertiary and slight variations. It's a clean look that never goes out of style. Consider the Ableton website, new logo or the look of this very forum. Eyestrain? Humbug. I say it's clean, modern and inspiring, even cheerful.

Do I get the job? Will work for a full program license. I'm still using the 4.1.4 lite version - life of a working artist supporting his wife and daughters don't you know!

Best,
James
www.pearsonart.com

Angstrom wrote:

Alex wrote: to provide skins for your own use or for others is one thing we can live with but not to provide guides explaining internals of our software or our formats nor to provide tools to create files of our formats without our authorization.

oops!

well, I guess sqook hasn't exactly assembled his Dev team just yet , so I hope he is still reading this thread!

I think there will be a few disapointed people there Alex, unless you are going to release an authorised skin editor, we are all creative types and like to 'create' and 'customize' our instruments. my philosophy on this is pretty much here http://www.makezine.com/

hopefully you dont mind me and others doing this hex editing by hand?
I guess this just makes it a little harder and therefore cooler huh?8)




and yes, I think the waveform progress marker should be a very different colour from both the wave and the wave background IMHO.

D'oh!

well maybe there are ways around it....

for now I guess we can post our requests....

PEARSONART - I think part of the reason you said you couldnt quite get the pastell shades etc is because you were just copy/pasting lines already there and there arent any shades like that already in any of them.

so my request:

something not so dark and stern but also something not glaringly bright - I often would prefer something brighter in colour - I like frost but it's like looking into a blizard after a while - it's just TOO bright, maybe it would be better as a kind of cream/off white

I would like to see pastel green/blue/beige/burgundys - none of them too strong

the problem with many of the current ones is they are WAY TOO strong, grey is too dark and depressing, I would definitely prefer more beige/ faint pastell green/blue/peach - that is the key, faint colours - subtle hues and not these "laser" type ones that are unusable because they would send you crazy after about 3 minutes.

Think of it psychologically - what effect does Grey have on creativity?? not alot. If anything it would act as a depressant. Same with all the darker ones. They don't stimulate the retina and mind...

the most relaxing colours in psych terms are said to be green because it has the calming effect of there being plenty of food and water in nature, but I'm not sure I'd like to stare at a full on green, again I think a subtle, pastell green. I also like the light peachy orange colour - but the oranges around so far are a total eyesore.

Like alot here have said I still want alot to change them regularly, but there needs to be more variety and less glaryness.....

Angstrom wrote:

Alex wrote: to provide skins for your own use or for others is one thing we can live with but not to provide guides explaining internals of our software or our formats nor to provide tools to create files of our formats without our authorization.

oops!

well, I guess sqook hasn't exactly assembled his Dev team just yet , so I hope he is still reading this thread!

Nope, and I was actually busy all day today debugging a different plugin, so I'm glad I didn't already sink a bunch of time into this app before reading this.


and @Alex, thank you very much for clarifying this issue. I can fully understand why the abes wouldn't want their code reverse-engineered, but I can assure you that the impetus for these efforts was based on lack of user-customizable skins for live. I hope that we can find a good compromise for this issue in future releases of live.

Alex wrote:Hey forge,

couldnt you just move this one??

I could but the thread is already this big that it takes hours to get through all.
Maybe we do this tomorrow, after some more replies and some sleep for me

regards,
/Alex

???? it must be about quarter to 5 am there!

good lord man, get yourself to bed at once!

Hi folks,

really.. what a thread

yeah, i dont think anybody has ever accused Live users of being "not hardcore enough"
.

sqook wrote:

Angstrom wrote:

Alex wrote: to provide skins for your own use or for others is one thing we can live with but not to provide guides explaining internals of our software or our formats nor to provide tools to create files of our formats without our authorization.

oops!

well, I guess sqook hasn't exactly assembled his Dev team just yet , so I hope he is still reading this thread!

Nope, and I was actually busy all day today debugging a different plugin, so I'm glad I didn't already sink a bunch of time into this app before reading this.


and @Alex, thank you very much for clarifying this issue. I can fully understand why the abes wouldn't want their code reverse-engineered, but I can assure you that the impetus for these efforts was based on lack of user-customizable skins for live. I hope that we can find a good compromise for this issue in future releases of live.

it's slightly disappointing, BUT:

Quote:
My skin mods have been available since October and not a word from the company. I think as long as our intentions are good and no harm or profit comes from it, we're being encouraged to tinker.

I would agree.
So to provide skins for your own use or for others is one thing we can live with but not to provide guides explaining internals of our software or our formats nor to provide tools to create files of our formats without our authorization.

would suggest the current skins already around are ok...so if more pop up, then they will be kindly appreciated! however you do it mr Sqook!

pearsonart.com wrote: As an artist, I would encourage the program designers to ...

... and um .. on the other hand, i dont think anybody has ever accused ableton of being "overly obsessed with visual aesthetic and user ergonomics" either


.

I agree.

If I understood the code back in October, I would have simply made new versions of the 1.1 default and Barrett that look the same in version 5. Those 2 themes suit me half the time. In fact, both still worked correctly up till version 5 was released.

Visit my site and you'll understand that I've been using oranges as a primary subject in my work for 6 years. Neutrals are useful in context but not as a dominant theme.

Seriously, hire me as a part time color consultant and designer. I've been painting professionally for 6 years. I also worked as a broadcast video and audio engineer for CBS, PBS and Warner Bros for 14 years so I'm in a unique position to understand how visual aesthetics affect creativity in a technical environment.

James
www.pearsonart.com