Note: Sadly, this is for the PC platform only. Sorry!


How It Works

This program speeds up creation and tweaking of Tracktion colour schemes.

It can handle any Tracktion colour scheme, but requires you to define UI element groups for the scheme before you can actually start changing the colour of the UI elements. This group information is normally created within Scheme Tweaker and then stored within <COLOURGROUP> tags in the .tracktionscheme definition file when you save it.

However, since the .tracktionscheme files are in XML format you can open them in any simple text editor and manually edit the <COLOURGROUP> information, and even copy it to old colour scheme files that have not been used in scheme tweaker before. (Just be careful - make backups first!)

Since all this is a bit daunting, I have made a template .tracktionscheme file with example UI element groups just to get you up and running.

What You Need

Download Scheme Tweaker here:

SchemeTweakerV0_86.zip

The Tracktion 3 template colourscheme, complete with schemetweaker group definitions:

tweakertemplate.zip

Extract the schemetweaker program to a program folder of your choice, and tweakertemplate.tracktionscheme to your favourite Tracktion user data folder.

Making Changes to a "Scheme-Tweaked" .tracktionscheme File

Start Scheme Tweaker and load the tweakertemplate.tracktionscheme file using "Open File..." in the File menu.

Scheme Tweaker will display the first element group called "Background". It only contains one GUI element, "mainBackground", so let's select a more interesting group. Click the group name, and in the drop-down list, click on the next group, "Area Backgrounds". The element list now shows a number of GUI elements, which each have the same colour in the template.

You can now:

  1. Edit a single GUI element's colour and transparency (alpha channel) by left-clicking the colour box next to its name in the list, or
  2. Change the relative colour, saturation or brightness of ALL elements in the group using the sliders to the right of the list (followed by clicking the "Apply" button).

    Note that there is no slider for transparency - that must be edited individually for each element.

When you are satisfied, use the "Save File..." option in the File menu, and the load the scheme into Tracktion's Colour editor to see the result.

The example groups in the template are set up so that the topmost groups allow you to quickly change the major parts of the tracktion interface in a uniform manner. For example, it is very easy to instantly set all UI elements defining selected object colour outlines to the same colour using the "Object Selections" group.

There's nothing to say that you have to KEEP them the same: After making the initial adjustments, you can edit each UI element individually either in schemetweaker or in Tracktion's built-in colour editor. However,

Note: Saving changes from within the Tracktion colour editor will erase the schemetweaker group data in the scheme file!

The general philosophy behind the template groups is as follows: Whenever two or more elements are so similar it is very likely you want to give them the same properties, they get their own group. You might call these groups "property-related". The nearer the top of the list, the bigger impact the group elements have on the overall colour scheme of the GUI, so starting at the top of the group list and working downwards is usually a good way to go.

The groups towards the bottom of the list are generally "object-related". For example, the "Mute And Solo Controls" group contains all basic UI elements for the mute and solo buttons. They do not have common properties that benefit from the Scheme Tweaker sliders, but you generally want to work on them simultaneously for other reasons.

Editing Your Own Groups

Not satisfied with how the groups are set up in the template? Click the "Groups" button to add a new group, delete the current group, or rename the current group.

Add UI elements to a group by dragging them from the overview list to the left and into the group list.

I have not found a way to delete single elements from a group. (But as I said before, you CAN edit and re-arrange the group lists manually if you open the .tracktionscheme file in an ordinary text editor!)