ProTracker II revealed

[AmigaMac]

Ruben...

Looks great.  I am curious about the OS 4 version.  When will that version be available?  Will you also bring it out for Mac?

[System]

Let it be known that Skins Suck (tm). They reduce the usability of applications by radically changing their interfaces, making them undocumentable and unintuitive for modest or novice use.

If you want something that only a geek can use, then fine. But ProTracker is more "art" (music!) than "computer programmer with a masters degree with honours and 25 years experience in algorithmic noise generation".

MUI or death. That's why it's part of MorphOS. You can easily abstract Windows MFC and MUI using the same techniques and get a GUI that works practically everywhere.

To those who think I'm harsh: I do *NOT* reward people with compliments just because they did some "minor works", if don't think it's good. It would be shallow to jump around and shout "WAHEYY!! IT'S GREAT!!!" when I don't think it is. There is a place for encouragement of work, and there is a difference between that and encouraging bad work. I prefer
not to tell people they did a good job if I don't think they did. Is that harsh? No, it's REALISTIC.

I like ProTracker, but I always hated the interface. The fonts used on that "default" skin are unreadable, there is too much clutter, and not enough information can be compared between modes (since the GUI will remove one section and display another.. I like editing my samples *AND* seeing the main GUI tracker window).

OctaMED kicked ProTracker's ass for that when they moved to a GadTools GUI. Shame it was GadTools

That ProTracker GUI also looks pretty "fullscreen"
to me - is it actually windowed, or does it really open a whole new screen? How do you do that on Windows, I'm curious. Hiding the desktop would be frowned upon, I hope it's windowed.

+Neko+

[bloodline]

Protracker for AROS.. go on say it again and make me smile.

[lempkee]

neko: 3-4 years ago you whined about  how LAME and awfull mui is/was and now you hype it up like a pig??? , sorry you have lost your touch..
oh and MUI is slow and retarded (that was one of your comments aswell and i couldnt agree more)


anyway i am glad PT2 (name is old ... should have been pt 5 or something like xeron said) Keeps the oldschool style interface.

ruben: glad to see you are still alive, and this is really good news, now lets see the os4 version..

[spihunter]

Very cool!!!. Between this and Pro station audio, The pegasos is looking like a interesting audio workstation.

I like the old school GUI. ;-)

[ruben]

@Neko

I appreciate your honest feedback. I'd rather have that than false cheerleading  :-)

Skins are a matter of opinion. For instance, I find Octamed really awkward to use, whereas I feel at home with ProTracker.
I agree that initially it may look harder because you're seeing a layout for the first time. On the other hand, they mean that the GUI can be optimized for the specific needs of the program. Would Winamp and Windows MP go well without skin support? I don't think so.

Also, it allows portability, which is important for this ProTracker. And sorry, I really don't think that abstracting MFC and MUI can be done 'easily', not to mention X if you want to support Linux (or you must be a REALLY good coder...)

Window mode: the screenshot is actually running on a window in XP, I just cut out the window borders. You can switch between full-screen and window mode at any time.

[ruben]

@matt, amigamac

Versions:

- Does AROS fully support SDL, with sound? If so, it should be trivial to port.

- MacOS / OS4: I don't have the hardware to support those myself, but if anyone wants to port it, feel free to ask me for the source.

[Crumb]

If you use SDL it should be dead easy to support OS4 too. As long as it works with 3.x and SDL it should work with OS4 too.

[System]

3-4 years ago you whined about how LAME and awfull mui is/was and now you hype it up like a pig???

I'm sure I most certainly did not. All of my favourite apps were MUI, all of the decent browsers were MUI, and having used it for coding in the last 3-4 years, I wouldn't use any other GUI toolkit.

You must be thinking of some other cat.

=Neko=

[System]

Skins are a matter of opinion. For instance, I find Octamed really awkward to use, whereas I feel at home with ProTracker.

I prefer to live in the 21st Century with all the modern conveniences that 21st Century user interface advances have brought me.

If I wanted to live in 1985 and reminisce and nostalgise about stuff like fixed-size user interfaces, skinning, "demo fonts" that look "cool", 4x4 pixel torus spinning around making me get a migraine, I would live in 1985 and do all those things.

But it's nearly 2004. You can use MUI for Protracker, and override all the layout yourself using subclassing. Skins without the crap.

Lempkee: I think I may have remembered just now - I do remember hating MagicWB with a passion, and the horrible blue and flesh colour scheme. MUI should have dropped it years ago, and it's a shame it took MorphOS to do it. We're still looking at XEN buttons and designed ordered-dither gradients everywhere, and a pink marker, though, even today.

=Neko=

[Johan Samuelsson]

Ruben:

About the GUI. I think it is really cool.
You said it yourself, you are no GFX artist, but
I am. And when it gets released I will most probably make a skin for it. (Duh, when it gets released for AOS4 that is, i have no Peggy.)

And, as you have realised, it is very very VERY
important to keep the layout PT like, as all tracker musicians are very used to that old
interface. I know, as I am the organiser of an Amiga music crew (Up Rough).
All musicians in Up Rough dislikes, and refuse to work with octamed as they think it's GUI is weird
and uncomfortable.
But maybe the most important thing is to keep
all the keyboard shortcuts exactly the same as
in the old PT versions. I have heard tracker musicians scream many bad words in a row when using for example digibooster or octamed.

That leads me t o another thing. Many Protracker
boys do not like Digibooster because it doesnt work exactly like Protracker..

The only really successful tracker on the Amiga
since Protracker must be THX/AHX.

The dream scenario would be to have one skinable
GUI and one MUI/Reaction GUI. Possible?

[bloodline]

- Does AROS fully support SDL, with sound? If so, it should be trivial to port.

It does, and I look forward to seeing the port :-D

[restore2003]

Yay! What more can i say?  :-D

[poktis]

is it better than digital performer ? Good news !!!

[SHADES]

@ Ruben

I agree with you. I find Protracker really easy to use as apposed to Octamed. I also love how I can compress all my modules and still use them transparently using the XPK package and Protracker.The sampleing and editing features are great and make it so easy to create samples. I don't know what this new version will be like, but if it's as good as what I currently use, it will be fantastic. MIDI is really a must for serious users but for us non keyboard sampler tracker types, this program is IDEAL.  I saw the specs, more tracks and better sample rates. I have been waiting and waiting for development of this app on the AMIGA. People keep saying, they will now be writing a newer revision, then they relase one or two bug fixes and drop it again.

I hope it get's to AMIGA OS. I love protracker.

[System]

Poster: Neko Date: 2003/12/3 14:29:10

Let it be known that Skins Suck (tm). They reduce the usability of applications by radically changing their interfaces, making them undocumentable and unintuitive for modest or novice use.

Propellerheads Reason springs to mind as one of the most intuitive interfaces i've ever used, and it's hardly a "standard UI".