Module Aesthetics

[Centripidity]

I'm wondering about the aesthetics of Centripidity modules, font and colour in particular.
Is this (see video below) something people would like to see in our modules? Does anyone really care?

http://vm.centripidity.com/misc/Skin%20Choice.mov

[utdgrant]

User-selectable panel colour is a brilliant idea! Colin and I were discussing this briefly in this thread.

Lesson 2 - Don't make several modules with the same colour scheme and panel layout.

Lesson 2: Again agreed up to a point. A sea of black panels with the same regular pattern of knobs and sockets a la Moog might look neat but as you say it's hard to navigate.

But all kinds of weird colors looks a mess too. Distinctive layouts and panel graphics are one route. Another would be user customizable skins. But unfortunately skinning is much more difficult than it should be in VM. It's crazy that the API doesn't even provide a means of changing the color of a plain panel's background.

(Just personal taste, but I really like the pastel colours, too).

[ColinP]

Hi Peter,

As I said in the other post, aesthetics is a very personal thing. Some people don't care much while others have very strong opinions, so it's something of a minefield.

I started out with a very distincive look for my modules but some people didn't like it so I've ended up gravitating to a pretty boring look on the grounds that it's going to offend the smallest number of people.

Some level of customization seems like a good idea but the practicalities aren't that straightforward. For instance I think many people would like to have light versions for daytime use and dark versions for nighttime use but if the customization happens at a module by module level nobody is going to bother going through every module in a patch. There needs to be some global option as found in the competition.

CA need to add a global Lght/Dark switch in Settings that can be interrogated by devs who could then (if they wanted to) adapt their color scheme to the current user choice. But given the huge list of requests for changes to VM and no real response this is all pie in the sky.

My current major project is related to this whole issue but I don't really want to reveal any details until I'm further along with the development.

[Centripidity]

User-selectable panel colour is a brilliant idea! Colin and I were discussing this briefly in this thread.

(Just personal taste, but I really like the pastel colours, too).

I like the pastel colours myself but sometimes I regret the choice of font althoughI don't want to unilaterally change it in case some people feel it's a downgrade. So, I think I will at least consider having a plain font as an option.

I'm inclined to come up with a collection of about 6 colours and eventually make them available on all modules but, as you say, VMD doesn't make that easy.

[Centripidity]

Hi Peter,

Some level of customization seems like a good idea but the practicalities aren't that straightforward.

Yes, that really is the point. If it were as easy as it should all of my modules would already have this, as would most people's I expect. I think I'm just asking myself if it's worth the considerable effort. If I offer a few colours that might be a good compromise but that's not a trivial task and will it just make some users unhappy that there aren't custom colours available?

I'll continue with my pondering and experimenting.

Thanks for you input, and to Grant also.

[ColinP]

Yeah, the development effort is something to think about as well as the user experience. Although it is possible to add a manufacturer level semi global option it's not easy and one can get stuck with a particular setup. My LSSP modules can be changed en masse with the Skin module but it's pretty crude and I'm not particularly happy with it. But it does enable people to replace the classic look with something more plain.

[seal58]

It's common, that companies design their environment and products matching their Corporate Identity.

For modules a corporate design might be used too, but it should also allow to distinguish modules within a preset easyly.
I find that Centripidity modules have a fresh design. They look a bit similiar and they are still different enough from each other.
Such a style is also provided by Andrew Macauley.

As example for not using corporate design I would see Nrgzr78. Many of their creative designed modules are really eyecatchers.

And on my opinion modules fronts should always contain the module name. Among third party manufacturers I can see only one, who's products basically never show a module name.

First P.moon products looked rather similiar to each other. Latter they've got a modified look. Meahwhile P.moon trys to use a design, that lets users distinguish both module function and manufacturer. And they use distinct background colors for distinct signal kinds. This could be helpful to users while cabling a preset.

Mostly design is a case of individual taste. Many young user find, it looks "uncool", when a device has other colors than dark black, middle black and dark grey. But I never liked black devices within my multimedia racks. So it might be a good way to provide modules with some user setable front designs.

[Centripidity]

This is still a bit crude and limited but it might be worth exploring. Clicking and dragging on the big "C" logo allows colour change.

http://vm.centripidity.com/misc/Colour% ... ol%202.mov

This approach doesn't require too much effort to implement and it could be set up so that all instances of the same module in a preset change simultaneously.

[seal58]

Centripidity: ... it could be set up so that all instances of the same module in a preset change simultaneously.

Peter, that sounds rather complicated to me. Could you please give a simple code example, how to influence other instances of a module? I know, that Adroit Synthesis even controls surface of all their modules. Is there a way to manipulate environment variables?

[Centripidity]

Centripidity: ... it could be set up so that all instances of the same module in a preset change simultaneously.

Peter, that sounds rather complicated to me. Could you please give a simple code example, how to influence other instances of a module? I know, that Adroit Synthesis even controls surface of all their modules. Is there a way to manipulate environment variables?

Basically you use the inbuilt functions SetGlobalProperty() and GetGlobalProperty(). All instances of the same module share the same value for each property so you can use them to pass values between instances.

Hope this makes it a little clearer.

Cheers,
Peter