Well, if it’s so tedious, then it’s a good thing we have something like ChatGPT, where you can ask it to rewrite chunks of code to serve your purpose, among other things.
Sorry, equivalent of what? I provided some screenshots in my original post to demonstrate some differences of Mac VS PC. I know that Macs have a dark mode setting (in their OS), and I have seen Mac users on Youtube have white menus in their Cubase, as well. So, this could point to the fact, that your Cubase menus will inherit the color (not sure about the text size, though) from your OS. Only for Macs, of course.
Agreed.
I’ve only heard good things about Reaper. And from the screenshots that I’ve seen, it looks amazing, indeed.
But Steinberg, given how long they’ve existed, should have enough experience to make this happen. Unless they deliberately choose not to do anything about it, because they don’t see any problem here.
I mean, I can imagine there are more critical problems that they’re probably working on like: crashes, compatibility issue and other technical difficulties. But I’d say this one is pretty important, as well, considering how many hours we have to look at the menus, and so on. And for their own sake, giving the users more freedom to customize their interface would also mean more paying customers, that will be satisfied in the long run.
Cubase can be customized in so many ways, already. So many interface-elements that you can show, hide and move. So why not also create some sort of visual uniformity in how those different GUI elements are displayed. And let the user choose: light theme, dark theme, tiny text, large text.
But I see what you mean. Perhaps, because there have been so many new implementations of new features in Cubase, over several decades, that it has become sort of a “feature creep”. And therefore it might have been more challenging for them to create a consistent interface to accommodate all of those features, both old and new.
Maybe that is why some menus and panels look so different from each other - because Steinberg did a lot of separate custom solutions to implements those different features into the same DAW. And I get it, the first priority is to make things work and make them stable - and the second, make them look better.
But still, if they at least could give PC users something similarly consistent and pleasant to look at, as
what Mac users have, that would be a start! Instead favoring one platform over the over.
The white background and the tiny font of Cubase 13 menus (even though I am using 150% DPI) is making me consider going back to Cubase 7.5 (or just 7), which have menus that are much better for my eyes:
However, the problem with Cubase 7.5 is, that some of the newer VSTs from Absolute 6 are displayed incorrectly, and there doesn’t seem to be a way to resize the VST window to fix it.
And what’s the use of having the newest VSTs, that you just paid for, if you can’t even use them properly…
But other than that, Cubase 7.5 menus are flexible and are “borrowed” from your current Windows theme and DPI. The new Cubase ignores all that.
Steinberg hardcoded white backgrounds and specific font type and size, in the menus. And it does not matter if you use a default theme, a dark mode theme or a high contrast (Windows) theme. And it doesn’t seem to matter that much, if you use high or low DPI. So if you don’t have the best eye sight and you are allergic to getting flashbangs and mini-nukes thrown at you (pure solid chunks of white on your screen), you are basically screwed.
(forgive my corny humor, but I had to)
So in other words, the menus in Cubase 13 are not as flexible as in the older versions, in regard to how they are rendered. This removes our freedom to customize the appearance (colors and size) of our own menus in Cubase, by setting that up in Windows, ourselves.
Cubase 8 and later required “Aero Glass” theme to even launch (the only software I have ever seen requiring that), which meant - no more High Contrast themes in Windows. In other words, Cubase 8 to Cubase 13 have white menus and there is not much you can do about it, if you are on PC.
And there have been problems with the menus, where the menu panel (on top) only shows once and then it disappears, once you click away from it - and this was a problem with Cubase up to version 12, I think. But it seems like they finally fixed it in the latest version, and in Cubase 13 you’re even allowed to use High Contrast theme again, which is a huge advantage for someone like me.
And at least Cubase 13 tooltips have black background, which is awesome too, although I would really appreciate the option to make the font a bit bigger.
And seeing, that there already is a “HiDPI” option in Preferences > General, it would only make sense, if every piece of text in Cubase would also benefit from this setting. Or if they could make a separate setting for Menus and Tooltips text and make it scalable, because right now it’s a bit too tiny, in my opinion.
So I am hoping, that the white menus that we have today is merely a stepping stone towards
TL;DR: I hope and dream, that one day I can launch Cubase and I have more freedom to customize nearly every aspect of it. So I can have bright text on a dark background. And that it’s easy to read and it’s a pure pleasure to work with Cubase and get stuff done without worrying about getting stabbed in the eyes by fully lit chunks of LED pixels on the screen.
By the way, if you agree with any of this, please upvote the topic, so that Steinberg will notice this and do something about it.
